Novel 1969 - Conagher (v5.0) Read online

  The man in buckskin flushed a little, then grinned. “Like I figured, you’ve got savvy,” he said. “Those two in there…I don’t cotton to ’em. I’d as soon they didn’t know where I hole up.”

  “I’ll do no talkin’. Ain’t none of my affair.” He held out a hand. “Name’s Conagher. I’m ridin’ the grub line whilst huntin’ a job.”

  “If you don’t find anything come on back to Beaverdam. There’s wolves up there, bear oncet in a while, and a few beaver. A man can make out on deer if he likes venison. I live off the country, make up a few furs to bring out. My name is Chip Euston.”

  He came around the horses. “Watch yourself with those two in there. That whole Ladder Five is a salty crowd and they don’t care whose stock they brand.”

  “Who are they?”

  “Hi Jackson and Pete Casuse. They drifted in here from the Neuces country.”

  “Likely I’ll never see them again. I’m driftin’.”

  But when he looked back from a distance of about half a mile, he saw the two men standing in front of the store, staring after him.

  Three days later, after swinging in a long circuit, Conn Conagher found a job.

  Seaborn Tay was forty years old when he decided to make his stand. He rode into the country alone, scouted a piece of country he liked, and although everybody warned him it was Apache country and he wouldn’t last a month, he moved in, built an outfit, and by the time Conn Conagher rode up to the bunk house rustling a job, Tay had been running cattle on that range four years and he still had his hair.

  Conagher swung down from his horse and looked across the yard at the man who stood on the steps.

  “You ridin’ the grub line, or huntin’ a job?”

  “A job if I can get it. A meal if I can’t.”

  “Have you got sand?” Tay came walking down toward him. “I’ll have nobody riding for me who is going to run for town the first time he sees a pony track.”

  Conagher took off the sheepskin coat. “Nice coat, ain’t it? Warm, too. Well, I just swapped for it. I swapped two rifles I taken off two dead Apaches. The third one got off, but he was packin’ lead. Does that answer your question?”

  “Supper will be on the table in about half an hour. You got time to wash up and stow your gear. On this job I furnish the horses and the ammunition. I’ll have no fighting among my crew. Any time you can’t stand up to the work I’ll give you two days’ grub and a head start.”

  Conagher stripped his rigging from the dun and turned it into the corral, then he packed his blanket roll and Winchester to the bunk house.

  It was like every other bunk house. Maybe it was a little stronger and tighter than most southern bunk houses, more like they had in Montana or Colorado. He chose an empty bunk near the stove, and threw his gear into it.

  There were three hands on the job. He made a fourth. There were bunks for twelve, but only those near the stove were occupied. He checked the fire, added a couple of sticks, and unrolled his bed. He took his spare six-shooter and tucked it under his blanket, then sat down and cleaned his rifle.

  By the time he had finished he heard the triangle ringing for supper, and when he went out one of the hands was just riding in. It was Kris Mahler.

  “Look what the cat dragged in,” Mahler said. “Did the Old Man hire you?”

  “Somebody has to do the work,” Conagher said. “Now I can see why he was so anxious to get a good man.”

  Mahler stepped down from the saddle and commenced building a smoke. “Anything strike you peculiar about this setup?”

  “What’s peculiar?”

  “Hirin’ men this time of year. Usually the old hands stay on for the winter months. Why should Tay be hirin’ so late in the season? What happened to his regular hands?”

  “Don’t get a burr under your saddle. You’ll find out soon enough. Where’s the others?”

  “Riding the line. It’s a long two-day trip. One goes north and one south, and they swing around and pass each other. There are two line cabins, and if you time it right you can sleep inside. Mainly it’s to keep stock from drifting, checking range and water holes, and keeping your eyes open for rustlers.”

  They walked up to the ranch house together.

  “The grub’s good,” Mahler said. “You never ate such grub. The Old Man found him a chef who got throwed out of some ho-tel back east.”

  There were just four of them at the table, and the food was good. Conn ate a second helping, then filled his cup again and leaned back.

  He talked little, listened a lot. Mahler had always been a good talker, an easy-going man, and a good hand. He had a way of talking on any subject, to anyone. Conn envied him, while he listened.

  There was one old hand, a man named Leggett who had come from southeast Texas to this place, riding as segundo to Tay, who was his own foreman. The other hand, as Conn might have guessed, was Johnny McGivern. Like himself, Mahler and McGivern had ridden in hunting a job and they had been hired.

  Suddenly Tay turned to Conagher. “Mahler will be telling you, anyway, so you might as well know. Two of my hands up and quit just before Mahler and McGivern rode in, and another one’s missing.”

  “Missing?”

  “Martinez. He came from Texas with me, too. He rode out, taking the south swing. Mahler saw him over east of here the next day. They talked, smoked a cigarette, and rode on. Nobody has seen Martinez since.”

  “A lot of things can happen,” Conagher said. “This here’s a rough country.”

  Kris Mahler tilted back in his chair and sipped coffee.

  The thought came to Conagher suddenly, and he voiced it without thinking. “Do you share any range with Ladder Five?”

  Mahler looked up sharply, then glanced at Tay. The rancher pushed back slightly from the table and studied Conn carefully. “What do you know about Ladder Five?”

  “Well, I saw a couple of their hands over to Horse Springs. They had pretty good outfits, the both of them. I’d say they were gents who could use a brand just like they’ve got.”

  “We’ve had no trouble with them,” Tay said. “We’ve no reason to expect trouble.”

  Conagher shrugged. “Well, I never saw them before and never expect to again. I just came here hunting a riding job.”

  Later, when they were outside, Mahler commented, “I wouldn’t say any more about the Five, if I was you. No need letting the Old Man get the wind up.”

  “None of my affair,” Conagher said. “I wanted a place to sit out the winter, and as long as nobody bothers me, I’ll bother nobody.”

  And then Mahler said the wrong thing. “A man out there on a horse…he’s all alone. He’s a settin’ duck for any man with a rifle. A man would be foolish to risk that now, wouldn’t he?”

  Conn Conagher, who never liked being pushed, felt his old cantankerous mood coming on. He’d be damned if he was going to ride scared for anybody…any time. But he said nothing. This, he decided, was a time to listen.

  The following day Leggett rode in.

  He was a tall man with a long face and a dry-as-dust manner, but Conn pegged him right away as an honest man, as well as no fool.

  Conn listened to him discuss conditions on the range, where he had seen cattle, where the water holes were, what steers were trouble makers.

  Conn saddled up and tightened the cinch. He got out his Winchester and slid it into the scabbard. “You won’t need that,” Mahler said. “We ain’t seen an Injun around in some time.”

  “I feel better with it,” Conn replied.

  Seaborn Tay walked out on the porch and called to him. “First time out,” he said, “you just get acquainted with the country.” Briefly he explained the layout of the range claimed by the ST, and then he added, in a somewhat lower voice, “I got nothing but respect for an honest cowhand.”

  Conn Conagher stepped into the saddle and gathered his reins. “Mr. Tay,” he said, “I’ve covered a lot of country in my time, but when I take a man’s money I ride for the brand.”


  Chapter 7

  *

  CONAGHER COVERED FOUR miles in his first hour. The range lay below six thousand feet at this point, with much open country. There were cottonwoods along the stream beds, with scrub oak, piñon, juniper, and occasional mountain mahogany on the slopes.

  The range condition was fair to middling. He saw a few head of steers and several cows, all wearing the ST brand. Where they were too close to what Tay considered his line, Conagher turned them back, then rode on.

  The stock was in good shape for cold weather, and there was sufficient range for the number of cattle he saw. On this first trip he was only going to get a rough idea of the country and the problems, but already he had seen a few areas where larkspur and horse bush were plentiful…a good idea would be to move all stock out of this area, come spring. Cattle wouldn’t eat most poisonous plants if there was other forage. The trouble was that many dangerous plants were the first things to turn green in the spring. He took out his tally book and made a note of the area and its probable limits.

  Just before noon he turned up a slope, found a trickle of water coming down through a grove of alders, and stepped down from the saddle. He loosened the cinch, let his horse have a little water, then picketed it on a pocket of grass and settled down to chewing on a piece of jerky.

  From where he sat he could see over a far stretch of country. Getting his field glasses from his saddlebag, he began to study the country. He spotted several bunches of cattle, a few scattered ones, and a bunch of deer. He was getting up to return the field glasses to the saddlebag, but took one longer look. Further out, beyond the limits of ST range, he saw another bunch of cattle.

  He studied them for a while, curious as to why they were bunched so tightly…and then he picked up a plume of dust and saw the cattle were being drifted by two riders. They were too far away to make them out clearly.

  He tightened the cinch, swung into the saddle, and angled down the mountainside.

  This was open range country, and the limits that Tay placed on his range were purely arbitrary. Such limits were probably not recognized by other ranchers; it was simply that Tay wished to keep his own herds within those limits. That way it was easier to supervise and care for them, to check range conditions, and to treat them for screw worms, and for cuts or scrapes from horns or rocks.

  Conagher found the tracks of scattered cattle on Tay range, and found where they had been bunched and drifted. The tracks showed the men had ridden carelessly, as if driving the cattle by chance.

  He followed the tracks, keeping to low ground and what cover he could find, until, topping out on a piñon-crested ridge, he saw the cattle not far off, still moving northward. The two riders were going on.

  Holding to the cover of the piñons, Conagher considered. The cattle below were likely to be ST stock, but without checking the brands, he would not be sure. They had been started north, and would probably, unless stopped, continue to graze in that direction. With a little nudge from riders, they might be thirty miles away by the time another man came this way.

  With his glasses he studied the direction taken by the two riders, but they were not in sight now. Waiting only a few minutes longer, he rode down to the herd.

  All but one wore the ST brand. He cut out the lone steer, then started the others back toward their home range. He had almost reached the home range when another rider, this one on a sorrel horse with three white stockings, came down off the slope.

  He was a stocky, hard-faced man with a scar over one eye, high cheekbones, and a square jaw. He was riding a Ladder Five horse.

  “Where you takin’ them steers?” he asked.

  “Back to their home range. As you can see, they’re ST stock. Figured I’d best start ’em back where they come from.”

  The man studied the brands, then looked at Conagher. “I don’t believe I know you,” he said. “Are you a new rider for Tay?”

  “Uh-huh. My name’s Conagher. First time around. Sort of gettin’ acquainted with the range.”

  “I’m Tile Coker. You’d better have a talk with Kris Mahler.”

  “We’ve talked before. Kris an’ me rode together for the stage company a while back.”

  Tile Coker gave him a quick glance. “Oh? Are you the gent who busted up Kiowa Staples?”

  “We had a difficulty.”

  “Heard about it.” Coker swung his horse. “You an’ Kris should get better acquainted. Save us all some trouble.”

  “Maybe.”

  Coker rode off, and Conagher pushed the cattle back over the line and deep into ST territory. Only then did he resume his ride.

  Twice he found bunches of ST cattle that seemed to have strayed too far north. He started them south, then pushed on, but he kept off the skyline and carried his Winchester in his hands.

  Johnny McGivern was waiting for him near a clump of scrub oak, but Conagher saw him before he was seen by McGivern and chose to make a sweep around some brush up the slope from where Johnny waited.

  McGivern saw him then and yelled, but Conagher took a slow, lazy turn around the clump of oak, cutting for sign. There was none but that left by Johnny himself, so he rode on up to the fire.

  Johnny had coffee ready, and Conagher swung down. This was apparently a place where frequent stops had been made. There were many tracks, but none of them were fresh except those made by Johnny’s pinto gelding.

  “The stock seems to be in good shape,” Conagher said. “Some of it is drifting, though.”

  “Yeah?” Johnny glanced at him. “You see anybody?”

  “Only a puncher named Coker. Rides for the Ladder Five.”

  “You talk much?”

  Conagher took his cup from his saddlebag and filled it from the coffeepot. “Not much.”

  Johnny was looking at him, but Conagher paid no attention. He sipped the coffee gratefully. “Good coffee,” he said.

  “We leave the pot hanging to that cedar. Whoever gets here first, makes it.”

  “I’ll try to see you get here before I do. You make better coffee.”

  “Ma taught me. Sometimes I made it for her before she got home.” Johnny looked around at him. “Ma worked out. My pa was killed in a train crash when I was six.”

  “She had nerve,” Conagher said. “It takes nerve to bring up a boy when a woman’s alone.” He looked over at Johnny. “She’d be proud of you, I think. You shape up like quite a man.”

  McGivern flushed, and to change the subject he said, “I always wished I could have known what pa was like. What kind of a man he was.”

  “Most railroaders I’ve known were mighty good men,” Conagher said. “I’ve helped lay track, myself. And I’ve ridden the cars a good bit, with shipments of stock, and the like. They’re good men.”

  “I never had a chance to know him.”

  “A boy should know his pa—he needs somebody to look up to. A boy or a girl, they learn how to be a man or a woman by watching their folks.”

  “There was a man worked at a store near us. Sometimes when we hadn’t any money he let us have groceries anyway…until we could pay. I don’t know if ma ever did manage to pay him all of it.”

  “Some day you ought to go back and ask him. Pay him what you owe.”

  Johnny stared into his cup. “I’ve thought about it. You think I should?”

  “Uh-huh.”

  They sat silent, drinking coffee and listening to the pleasant sound of the horses cropping grass. After a while, Conagher got to his feet and cinched up.

  “Conn?” Johnny said questioningly.

  “Yeah?”

  “Why didn’t you draw on that man? On Kiowa?”

  “You mean was I afraid? No, I wasn’t…not that I recollect. I expect all men are scared sometimes, but I didn’t think of it. Kiowa wasn’t really mean—he just had a blown-up idea of who he was…why should I kill him because he was making a fool of himself? Why should I risk getting killed myself, for the same reason?

  “He had to be taught,�
� Conn went on, “and there’s no other way, sometimes. If he lives, he’ll be grateful. If he doesn’t, it won’t make any difference. First thing you want to remember, boy, is that a reputation doesn’t make a man tough. You got to know, not did he kill somebody, but who were they? How tough were they? Also, could he have done otherwise? A man who kills when he can do otherwise is crazy…plumb crazy.”

  “He might have killed you.”

  “Might have.” Conagher stepped into the saddle and looked down at Johnny McGivern. “Some men take a sight of killing, boy. Just be sure that when killing time comes around that you’re standing on the right side.”

  Johnny stared after him. Now what did he mean by that? Did he mean anything by it?

  In spite of himself, Johnny felt drawn to the strange, lonely rider who was just disappearing down a draw. He had never seen a man more alone, nor a man more secure in himself. That was it, Johnny surmised: Conn Conagher knew what he believed…and Johnny wished he did himself.

  Kris now…Kris had swagger and style, but something about Kris made Johnny uneasy.

  But only since he had met Conn Conagher.

  *

  THAT WAS THE day Conn found the first of the notes. He saw it from far off, and drew up in the shadow of a juniper to study it out.

  Down there on the flat there was a speck of white, just a speck, but it had no business to be there.

  Conagher had been less than fourteen when he learned to distrust something out of place, and what he saw was not sunlight on a stone, it was not the bottom side of a leaf; it looked like a bit of paper.

  It was not much over a hundred yards off, so he put his glass on it.

  A piece of paper lying amongst some tumbleweed. His glasses swept the ground…no tracks that he could see at this distance.

  Warily, he rode along, scouting the area until he was sure there was no one around. Then he rode up to the tumbleweed.

  The paper was folded over several times and it was tied to the tumbleweed. Curious, he untied it and opened the paper.