Collection 1999 - Beyond The Great Snow Mountains (v5.0) Read online

  “I, señor?” Lopez’s eyes shifted right and left. “I was moving no cattle. I was in my bunk, asleep.”

  “A lie!” Ward’s tone was brutal and he moved a step nearer. “You took that black horse out again, and you an’ somebody else cut some cattle from the unbranded herd and moved them over into those mixed brands!”

  “Sleeperin’, by golly!” Baldy slapped his leg. “Sleeperin’! Why didn’t I figure that? An’ nobody ever checks that herd of mixed brands. After we’re finished here, they’ll just be left to drift back on the range from that long valley where you’re holdin’ ’em.”

  “And then these rannies could move in an’ brand the unbranded stock for themselves. Nice business.” Bud Fox dropped a hand to his six-shooter. “Do we down him, boss?”

  “Not if he talks.” Ward walked up to the Mexican, whose face was a sickly yellow now. “Lopez, who’s bossin’ this show? Tell me an’ you can go free.”

  “Let me have a hand at him!” Gallatin shoved forward, his face grim and his eyes narrow. “I’ll fix him for you!”

  “Keep out of this!” Ward snapped. “I’ll talk to you, later! I’ve a good notion you’re the other one in this mess!”

  Gallatin sprang back, his face suddenly wolfish. “Oh, you think so, do you? Well, by—” His hand swept down for his gun.

  “Stop!” Ward yelled. “Drop it or I’ll kill you!”

  Gallatin was crouching and his gun kept lifting. “Drop, nothin’!”

  Ward palmed his six-gun in a flashing movement and flame stabbed from the black muzzle. His own gun coming up too slow, Gallatin caught the lead slugs in the stomach. He gulped, then staggered slowly back, his eyes glazing, the gun slipping from nerveless fingers.

  III

  Hooves clattered and a shout went up. McQueen whirled in time to see Lopez streaking away on the horse the Mexican had just freshly saddled. Ward’s gun came up, but the rustler was in a direct line with two men on the far side of the herd, and he dared not fire.

  “Gone!” He swore. “He got plumb away.”

  Baldy Jackson reached for his bridle reins. “Boss, we’d better get at that mixed herd. Now they’ll probably move in an’ try to rustle the works. We’d better start cuttin’ her.”

  “We’re not in on any deal with Gally or the Mex,” Jensen said. “You can ask Dick Gerber. I rode for him four years.”

  Ward glanced around at them. “Either of you know their friends? Who did they see in Sotol?”

  Jensen hesitated. “Well, I reckon that Black who still rides for Gerber was the only one. They were pretty thick when they both rode for this spread. And then Villani. He worked for Gerber for a while, then left him after some trouble over a bridle, and he went to hangin’ out with Ernie Yost.”

  “That fits.” Sartain nodded. “They all run together. The same brand wears well on them. Let’s go coyote huntin’, boss.”

  Ward McQueen hesitated. That was one thing, but the cattle came first. He must at all costs protect Ruth’s cattle. “No, we’d better start workin’ that mixed herd an’ cuttin’ our unbranded stock out of it.”

  “Boss, that Mex didn’t head for Sotol,” Bud suggested. “He took out for the mountains an’ I’ve a good idea he’s more set on gettin’ safe away than tellin’ Yost what happened here. Why don’t we lay low an’ check that herd today?”

  “All right.” Jensen was facing Ward, and he motioned to the body of Gallatin. “Plant him over by those trees, will you? Before anybody sees him. And I don’t want it mentioned all day, you hear? Not in front of anybody!”

  Sartain crooked a leg around his saddle horn. “Boss, I reckon Buff Colker will be out here soon.”

  “I said anybody.” Ward turned to Bud. “I like your idea. We’ll start cutting the mixed herd again tomorrow. Today we’ll keep on with the branding, and tonight,” he glanced at Baldy, then at Kim, “tonight we’ll stand guard by that unbranded herd. If anybody starts to move those cattle we’ll be ready for them.”

  The day drew on, hot and dusty. There was no breeze, and Ward nervously glanced at the sky from time to time. It felt like a storm was building up.

  A cloud of dust hung over the corral where the branding was done, and the hands kept working up new bunches of cattle from the herd of the unbranded. Sartain was handling a rope, and Baldy was working with a branding iron. Buff Colker had arrived and sat his paint horse near the corral.

  “KT, one calf!” Baldy yelled, slapping the iron on the animal, which bawled plaintively. “Tumblin’ K! One calf!”

  Colker checked the KT in his tally book and wiped the dust and perspiration from his brow. Ward McQueen was studiously avoiding the KT rep. He put his rope on a white-face steer and spilled the beast close to the fire. Baldy slapped the iron and yelled, “Tumblin’ K! One steer!”

  Colker slapped his book shut and turned his horse. “Guess I’ll ride along, McQueen,” he said, “I’ve got business in town!”

  Ward glanced around, his lips tight. “Go ahead,” he said. “We don’t need you here.”

  Buff laughed sardonically. “Maybe there’s somebody else that needs me.”

  McQueen’s face flamed. “I don’t know what you mean by that, Buff,” he said evenly, “but you’d better be ridin’.”

  “That lady boss of yours seems to like what I say. Pretty little thing, I’ll say that for her.”

  McQueen turned his roan. “If you’re goin’,” he warned, “you better hightail it while the goin’s good.”

  Colker laughed, his eyes hard and the sneer evident. “Ward,” he said, “you’re a fool! After I’ve had my way with her, I’ll come back here an’ teach you a couple of things!”

  He wheeled his horse and started at a gallop toward the Sotol trail. Ward McQueen’s face went hard and white, and he wheeled his horse and went after Buff like a streak.

  “Lord help that Colker now!” Baldy said. “The boss is sure boilin’. I wondered how much he’d take from that four-flusher!”

  “Look!” Kim yelled excitedly. “This is goin’ to be good!”

  Too late, Buff Colker turned to see what was happening. Ward’s roan had covered the ground in a short dash that brought him alongside Colker’s galloping horse. Quickly, Ward reached down and grabbed the paint horse’s tail and whipped it to one side, shoving the horse hard with his knee.

  It was a process used often on the range to throw a steer, and when the animal, whether horse or cow, was traveling at all rapidly, it would invariably be spilled on the head and shoulder. It was known as “tailing,” but was rarely used on a horse unless the animal was of little or no value.

  Colker and the animal went flying. He sprang to his feet and clawed for his gun, then stopped. Ward was on the ground facing him, and had him covered. Colker had never even seen Ward draw.

  A dozen cowhands had crowded around. “Bud,” Ward said, “take his gun. I’m goin’ to teach this cowboy a lesson!”

  “What do you mean?” Colker snarled. His face was white, but his eyes blazed. “You aimin’ to shoot me down like a dog?”

  “No, amigo,” Ward said harshly, “I’m goin’ to beat your thick skull in with my fists.”

  Abruptly, Buff grinned. “You’re goin’ to fight me with your hands? I’ll kill you!”

  Fox slid the gun from Buff Colker’s holster, and Ward stepped over to Kim Sartain and hung his own gun belts around his saddle horn. Then he turned.

  Across the wide ring of horsemen, he faced Buff Colker. Buff was the bigger man, young, wide-shouldered, and tough. He was smiling and confident. Buff paused long enough to strip off his shirt. Ward did likewise. Then the two men moved together.

  Colker came fast and lashed out with a left that caught Ward coming in, but failed to stop him. McQueen crowded Colker and threw a short left, palm up, into Buff’s midsection as they came together, Ward turning his body with the punch. It jolted Buff, but he jerked away and smashed both hands to Ward’s face. Ward tried to duck a left, and caught another right. The
n he closed in and threw Colker hard with a rolling hip-lock. Buff came up fast and dived at Ward’s knees and they both went down, and then they were up and fighting, toe to toe, slugging. The two men came together, throwing their punches with everything they had in them.

  Eyes blazing with fury, Buff sprang close, swinging with both hands. The dust rose from around their feet in a thick cloud, so at times the fighting could scarcely be seen. Neither man would give an inch and they fought bitterly, brutally, at close quarters. This was old stuff to Ward, for he had battled in many a cow camp brawl, and he kept moving in, his head spinning and dizzy with rocking blows, his hands always set to punch.

  Blood trickled from a cut lip, and he had the taste of it in his mouth. Overhead the sky was like a sheet of iron, molten with heat. Ward set himself and slammed a right to the body. Again Buff was jolted, and he stepped back, and McQueen moved in, advancing his left foot then his right. He worked in, then threw his right again. Buff’s hands came down and Ward lunged, swinging high and hard with both fists, and Colker went down in the dust and rolled over.

  “Put the boots to him!” Baldy said. “He’d give them to you!”

  “Let him get up!” Ward panted. “I want more of him!”

  Colker staggered to his feet and stood there weaving, the hatred in his eyes a living thing. He lunged, suddenly. But Ward met him with a stiff left hand that stopped him flat-footed and left him wide open for a clubbing right. It caught Colker flush on the ear, and Buff went down to his knees, the ear beginning to puff almost as he hit the ground.

  Ward moved in, staggering with exhaustion. He jerked Colker to his feet and, holding him with his left, struck him twice in the wind and then three blows with his right in the face. Then he shoved the man from him, and Buff staggered and tumbled into the dust.

  McQueen walked back to his horse and leaned against it for an instant, then picked up his shirt and began to wipe his face and body with it.

  “Better get started on those cows,” he commented. “We’ve a lot to do.”

  Baldy stared at him grimly. “You better go up to the cook shack and get that face fixed up,” he suggested. “You look like chopped beef. But not,” he added with satisfaction, “near so bad as he does!”

  Colker was still stretched on his face, and Bud Fox glanced at him. “Shall we pick him up?” he asked.

  “Let him lay!” Baldy told him. “He needs the rest!”

  * * *

  WHEN HE HAD bathed his face and repaired the cuts as best he could, Ward McQueen studied the situation. He was wrong to have let Buff Colker goad him into a fight. Nobody ever gained anything permanent by violence despite the satisfaction derived from a solid smash of a fist.

  Colker was not his problem. He knew that Gallatin and Lopez had been sleepering cattle, and there seemed to be a connection between them and the Yost crowd, and possibly with Black.

  He must find something more concrete in the way of evidence. Without returning to the corral, he dropped to a seat on a wooden bench in the shade near the back door of the cook shack. From where he sat he could see the dust rising from the branding corral, and the hills beyond.

  The cook stuck his head out of the door and grinned at him. “Coffee, señor?”

  “You bet, Pedro! An’ thanks.”

  Sleepering cattle by day was a risky job, but it had been done. Baldy and Bud had the right idea, to check the herd by night and watch for the rustlers. Gerber himself might even be in it, but McQueen could not bring himself to admit that, nor could he quite believe that Ernie Yost, crooked as he was, would be the ringleader in any such scheme. Yost might run off forty or fifty head and sell them over the border, but dangerous as he might be at times, he was not a man who planned big.

  Sartain had suggested that Colker did not always go to town when he left the roundup. If not to Sotol, where did he go? To a hideout in the hills? Or was he, himself, drifting unbranded stock away from the main herd?

  Ward McQueen mounted the roan and headed back for the branding corral. Baldy rode up to him as he approached.

  “The boys workin’ back in the hills say the stock is mostly down out of the brush,” he commented. “Also, Bud seen Old Man Gerber back there in the woods.”

  “Gerber? Out here?” Ward scowled. “What was he doing? Did Bud talk to him?”

  “No, he didn’t. Bud found a few more Slash Seven cows for us and was starting them back. They showed no liking for open country, so he had his work cut out for him.”

  “How long ago?”

  “Right after the fight. He must be still back there because we heard a shot ’way back in the canyon, maybe a half hour ago.”

  “A shot? What would he be shootin’ at?”

  Baldy Jackson shrugged. “Want me to ride back an’ see? Maybe the old feller is skinnin’ you, Ward.”

  “No, he’s honest enough. I think I’ll ride back there, though. You come along.”

  “Kim was tellin’ about your run-in with Yost, an’ then with Black. You reckon they are in on this steal?”

  Ward shrugged. “Could be. Lopez and Gallatin weren’t in it alone.”

  The grass was parched and brown in the valley, and they were leaving the scattered growth of oak, Spanish dagger, and mesquite for higher ground and the cedar. The air felt thick and heavy. Across the shoulder of the mountain they pushed down into the thick brush, and here they ran into Jensen with four head of Slash 7’s, two YT’s, and a 21.

  “You see Gerber here?” Ward demanded.

  “No, I sure haven’t. Heard a shot a while back, then two more. I had these critters, though, an’ couldn’t chase over to investigate. Somebody shootin’ at a wolf, maybe, or a panther.”

  “Start those cattle over the ridge and then come with us. We may need an outside witness.”

  IV

  Ward mcqueen’s gray eyes swept the tangle before him. It would be like hunting for a needle in a haystack to search for anything down there. Still, if Gerber was out here, he was here for a reason.

  The sun was blazing hot, and in the chaparral the heat was oppressive. It felt even more like a storm than before. If it rained, it would at least make travel better, and Ward’s plan was to start the herd within forty-eight hours if possible. It wouldn’t give the men much rest, but he wanted to be driving north to where the grass was better.

  Along the trail north they could take their time. He wanted the cattle to feed all the way to Kansas, anyway.

  Sweat trickled down his face, cutting a furrow through the dust. It was hot. He wiped his palms dry on his pant legs and let the roan find its way through the brush that now was higher than his head.

  “More to the left, I reckon,” Jensen said. “You can’t always swear to the direction.”

  “I smell smoke,” Baldy said. “Hold up! I smell smoke close to hand.”

  “Who would want a fire on a day like this?” Jensen asked, of nobody in particular. “This place is like an oven.”

  “Wait a minute!” Ward lifted a hand. “There’s something over here.” He turned his horse and pushed through the shin oak, then drew up sharply, and the roan snorted and backed up. “Dead man,” he said.

  He trailed the bridle reins and dropped to the ground. He needed to go only a step nearer to recognize Dick Gerber. The white-haired old man was lying on his back, one arm thrown across his eyes to shield them from the sun.

  Jensen dropped from his horse and bent over the old man. He placed a hand on his heart.

  “Dead, all right. That’s too bad, he was a pretty good old boy, at that.”

  “What was he doin’ with a fire?” Baldy demanded. “Hey, there’s a runnin’ iron!”

  Ward scowled. “Gerber? With a runnin’ iron? What would he be brandin’?” He stared at the man, and then at the fire. “Hunt up his horse, Baldy, while Jensen an’ I have a look around.”

  “He always carried a runnin’ iron, Mr. McQueen,” Jensen said. “The old man claimed it saved a sight of time to brand stock where he
found it. Never went out but what he carried it.”

  Ward looked around thoughtfully. Obviously, Gerber had used the iron. He bent over it and touched it. It was lying in the shade and it was still warm.

  Gerber had been shot twice through the chest, never able to get his gun out. It was a plain case of murder.

  “He had a critter down, Mr. McQueen,” Jensen said. “Here’s the tracks. He throwed it, an’ from the look hog-tied it.”

  “Yeah.” Ward squatted on his heels. “Here’s a piggin’ string. But what would he want to brand back in here on a day like this?”

  “It wasn’t dishonest,” Jensen said stubbornly. “I knew the old man well, as I guess you did. He was on the level.”

  “Sure! But what was he doin’ here? An’ who shot him?”

  Jensen scratched his jaw. “You know what they’ll say. They’ll say you done it. They’ll say after that trouble in town that you had more trouble and that you killed him in an argument over cattle.”

  McQueen stared at the old man’s body. So far as he could see, nothing had been touched. He got up, studying the angle of the shots, but apparently the old man had not died at once, but had moved around some, and it was hard to figure. Yet, when he looked again, there did seem to be one possibility.

  On the brow of a hill, not over fifty yards away, was a cluster of boulders. It was worth looking at.

  “Baldy, go back to the ranch and get a buckboard,” he said. “Come as far as you can, an’ we’ll pack the body out to it.”

  “You ought to be havin’ a look around, Mr. McQueen,” Jensen said seriously. “This here was murder, an’ you better find who done it. Folks sure liked this old man.”

  Who had the opportunity? Jensen, of course. Bud Fox, too. Both of them had been working the brush, and there were probably two or three other hands who had been in the vicinity. But it wouldn’t make sense for any of them to kill him. It had to be someone else, and somehow it was sure to tie in with the sleepering of Slash 7 cattle.

  Ward turned and fought his way through the brush to the nest of boulders on the hill. From atop a boulder, he studied the earth behind them. From here he could see Jensen standing over Gerber’s body, and the unknown murderer could have done the same. Behind the rocks were boot tracks, a number of them. He could find no cartridge anywhere around.