The Ranch at the Wolverine Part 21

He was wary of exposing himself too much to view from the bluff while he did his ch.o.r.es that night, and he kept Rattler in the stable. Also, he slept very little, and before daybreak he was up and away. He had a rolled army blanket tied behind the saddle, a sack of grub and a frying-pan and a bucket for coffee. But he did not go any farther than the wolf-den, and he spent a couple of hours removing as well as he could any suspicious traces of having dug anything more than wolf pups from the bank on the ledge.

CHAPTER XVI

"I'M GOING TO TAKE YOU OUT AND HANG YOU"

The trouble with a man like Buck Olney is that you can never be sure of his method, except that it will be underhand and calculated to eliminate as much as possible any risk to himself. Ward, casting back into his memory--he had known Buck Olney very well, once upon a time, and in his unsuspecting youth had counted him a friend--tried to guess how Buck would proceed when he went down to that corral and found how those brands had been retouched.

"He'll be running around in circles for awhile, all right," he deduced with an air of certainty. "Blotched brands he'd know was my work; and he could have put it on me, too, with a good yarn about trailing me so close I got cold feet. As it is--" Ward smoked two cigarettes and scowled at the scenery. As it was, he did not know just what Buck Olney would do, except-- "If he makes a guess I did that, he'll know I'm wise to the whole plant. And he'll get me, sure, providing I stand with my back to him long enough!" Ward had his back to a high ledge, at that moment, so that he did not experience any impulse to look behind him.

"Buck don't want to drag me up before a jury," he reasoned further.

"He'd a heap rather pack me in all wrapped up in a tarp, and say how he'd caught me with the goods, and I resisted arrest."

The a.s.surance he felt as to what Buck Olney would do did not particularly frighten Ward, even if he did neglect to go to bed in his cabin during the next few days. That was common sense, born of his knowledge of the man he was dealing with. He went to the cabin warily, just often enough to give it an air of occupancy. He frequently sat upon some hilltop and watched a lazy thread of smoke weave upward from his rusty stovepipe, but he slept out under the stars rolled in his heavy blanket, and he never crossed a ridge if he could make his way through a hollow. It is not always cowardice which makes a man extremely careful not to fall into the hands of his enemy. There is a small matter of pride involved. Ward would have died almost any death rather than give Buck Olney the satisfaction of "getting" him. For a few days he was cautious as an Indian on the war trail, and then his patience frazzled out under the strain.

At sunrise one morning, after a night of shivering in his blanket, he hunched his shoulders in disgust of his caution. If Buck Olney wanted anything of him, he was certainly taking his time about coming after it. Ward rubbed his fingers over his stubbly jaw, and the uncomfortable p.r.i.c.kling was the last small detail of discomfort that decided him. He was going to have a shave and a decent cup of coffee and eat off his own table, or know the reason why, he promised himself while he slapped the saddle on Rattler.

He was camped in a sheltered little hollow in the hills, where the gra.s.s was good and there was a spring. It was a mile and more to his claim, straight across the upland, and it was his habit to leave Rattler there and walk over to the ridge, where he could watch his claim; frequently, as I have said, he stole down before daylight and lighted a fire in the stove, just to make it look as if he lived there.

There was a risk in that, of course, granting that the stock inspector was the kind to lie in wait for him.

Ward rode to the ridge, with his blanket rolled and tied behind the cantle. His frying-pan hung behind his leg, and his rifle lay across the saddle in front of him. He was going home boldly enough and recklessly enough, but he was by no means disposed to walk deliberately into a trap. He kept his eye peeled, as he would have expressed it.

Also, he left Rattler just under the crest of the ridge, took off his spurs, and with his rifle in his hands went forward afoot, as he had done every time he had approached his cabin since the day he found the corral and the cattle in the canyon.

In this wise he looked down the steep slope with the sun throwing the shadow of his head and shoulders before him. The cabin window blinked cheerfully in the sunlight. His span of mares were coming up from the meadow--in the faint hope of getting a breakfast of oats, perhaps. The place looked peaceful enough and cozily desirable to a man who has slept out for four nights late in the fall; but a glance was all Ward gave to it.

His eyes searched the bluff below him and upon either side. Of a sudden they sharpened. He brought his rifle forward with an involuntary motion of the arms. He stood so for a breath or two, looking down the hill. Then he went forward stealthily, on his toes; swiftly, too, so that presently he was close enough to see the carbuncle scar on the neck of the man crouched behind a rock and watching the cabin as a cat watches a mouse-hole. A rifle lay across the rock before the man, the muzzle pointing downward. At that distance, and from a dead rest, it would be strange if he should miss any object he shot at. He had what gamblers call a cinch, or he would have had, if the man he watched for had not been standing directly behind him, with rifle-sights in a line with the scar on the back of his thick neck.

"Throw up your hands!" Ward called sharply, when his first flare of rage had cooled to steady purpose.

Buck Olney jumped as though a yellow-jacket had stung him. He turned a startled face over his shoulder and jerked the rifle up from the rock.

Ward raised his sights a little and plugged a round, black-rimmed hole through Buck's hat crown.

"Throw up your hands, I told you!" he said, while the hills opposite were still flinging back the sound of the shot, and came closer.

Buck grunted an oath, dropped the rifle so suddenly that it clattered on the rock, and lifted his hands high, in the quiet sunlight.

"Get up from there and go on down to the shack--and keep your hands up.

And remember all the reasons I've got for wanting to see you make a crooked move, so I'll have an excuse to shoot." Ward came still closer as he spoke. He was wishing he had brought his rope along. He did not feel quite easy in his mind while Buck Olney's hands were free. He kept thinking of what Billy Louise had said to him about shooting this man, and it was the first time since he had known her that he disliked the thought of her.

Buck got up awkwardly and went stumbling down the steep slope, with his hands trembling in the air upon either side of his head. From their nervous quivering it was evident that his memory was good, and that it was working upon the subject which Ward had suggested to him. He did not give Ward the weakest imitation of an excuse to shoot. And so the two of them came presently down upon the level and pa.s.sed around the cabin to the door, with no more than ten feet of s.p.a.ce between them--so inexorably had Ward crowded close upon the other's stumbling progress.

"Hold on a minute!"

Buck stopped as still as though he had gone against a rock wall.

Ward came closer, and Buck flinched away from the feel of the rifle muzzle between his shoulder blades. Ward reached out a cautious hand and pulled the six-shooter from its scabbard at Buck's right hip.

"Got a knife? You always used to go heeled with one. Speak up--and don't lie about it."

"Inside my coat," grunted Buck, and Ward's lip curled while he reached around the man's bulky body and found the knife in its leather sheath.

Evidently Buck was still remembering with disquieting exactness what reasons Ward might have for wanting to kill him.

"Take down your left hand and open the door."

Buck did so and put his hand up again without being told.

"Now go in and stand with your face to the wall." With the rifle muzzle, Ward indicated which wall. He noticed how Buck's fingers groped and trembled against the wall, just under the eaves, and his lip curled again in the expression which Billy Louise so hated to see.

Ward had chosen the spot where he could reach easily a small coil of rope. He kept the rifle pressing Buck's shoulders until he had shifted the knife into one hand, leaned, and laid its blade against Buck's cheek.

"Feel that? I'll jab it clear through you if you give me a chance.

Drop your hands down behind you." He spent a busy minute with the rope before he pushed Buck Olney roughly toward a chair.

Buck sat down, and Ward did a little more rope-work.

"Say, Ward, you're making a big mistake if you--"

"Shut up!" snapped Ward. "Can't you see I'm standing all I can stand, just with the sight of you? Don't pile it on too thick by letting me hear you talk. I heard you once too often as it is."

Buck Olney caught his breath and sat very still. His eyes followed Ward as the eyes of a caged animal follow its keeper.

Ward tried to ignore his presence completely while he lighted a fire and fried bacon and made coffee, but the hard set of his jaw and the cold intentness of his eyes proved how conscious he was of Buck's presence. He tried to eat just to show how calm he was, but the bread and bacon choked him. He could feel every nerve in his body quiver with the hatred he felt for the man, and the bitterness which the sight of him called up out of the past. He drank four cups of coffee, black and sweetened at random, which steadied him a little. That he did not offer Buck food or drink showed how intense was his hatred; as a rule, your true range man is hospitable even to his enemies.

He rose and inspected the ropes to make sure that they were proof against twisting, straining muscles, and took an extra turn or two with the loose end, just to make doubly sure of the man's helplessness.

"Where did you leave your horse?" he asked him curtly, when he was through.

Buck told him, his eyes searching Ward's face for mercy--or at least for some clew to his fate--and dulling with disappointment because he could read nothing there but loathing.

Without speaking again, Ward went out and closed the door firmly behind him. He felt relieved to be away from Buck's presence. As he climbed the bluff and mentally relived the last hour, he wondered how he had kept from shooting Buck as soon as he saw him. Still, that would have defeated his main purpose, which was to make Buck suffer. He was afraid he could not make Buck suffer as Buck had made him suffer, because there were obstacles in the path of a perfect retribution.

Ward was not cruel by nature; at least he was not more cruel than the rest of us; but as he went after Rattler and Buck's horse, it pleased him to know that Buck Olney was tied hand and foot in his cabin, and that he was sick with dread of what the future held for him.

Ward was gone an hour. He did not hurry; there was no need. Buck could not get away, and a little suspense would do him good.

Buck's face was pasty when Ward opened the door. His eyes were a bit gla.s.sy. And from the congested appearance of his hands, Ward judged that he had tested to the full his helplessness in his bonds. Ward looked at him a minute and got out the makings of a smoke. His mood had changed in his absence. He no longer wanted absolute silence between them; instead, he showed symptoms of wanting to talk.

"If I turn you loose, Buck, what will you do?" he asked at last, in a curious tone.

"If you--Ward, I'll prove I'm a friend to yuh in spite of the idea you've got that I ain't. I never done nothing--"

"No, of course not." Ward's lip curled. "That was my mistake, maybe.

You always used to say you were my friend, when--"

"And that's the G.o.d's truth, Ward!" Buck's face was becoming flushed with his eagerness. "I done everything I could for you, Ward, but the way the cards laid I couldn't--"