Troublesome Range Part 6

Keech had stopped five steps above, his head at ceiling level. He said in that same trembling voice: "You can't get away with anything with me, Joe!"

"No one's tryin' to." Joe lifted his hands outward. "You've got my iron. All I want is information . . . and a smoke while you give it to me." Again slowly, so that his gesture wouldn't be mistaken, he pulled his poncho aside and took a sack of tobacco from a pocket of his vest.

Keech stiffened until Joe had completed his move, then visibly relaxed. The clerk even lowered his gun as he bridled: "What information? You know how you gave it to Merrill as well as I do."

"Yeah. Shot him in the back, didn't I?"

"Like blazes you did! You clubbed him over the head with the b.u.t.t of a gun!" Keech was watching his prisoner's hands as they sifted tobacco out onto a wheat-straw paper.

"Now that's interestin'," drawled Joe. "Where'd it happen?"

"In the alley behind the Land Office. You know as well as . . ." Keech broke off as Joe clumsily dropped the sack of tobacco close in to the bottom step of the stairs.

Joe grinned sheepishly. "Shakin' like a leaf," he declared, and stooped over to retrieve his tobacco.

"You ought to be shakin'," Keech began. "Anyone who'd . . ."

He got no further. For, instead of reaching for the tobacco sack, both of Joe's hands had closed on the loose end of the stair runner. He lunged erect, throwing all his weight against the long piece of carpeting. The tacks holding it pulled away easily. Before Keech could lift his gun, his footing was gone out from under him. He was falling frontward, hands outstretched to break his fall.

At the last moment he knew what was coming and cried out shrilly. The slam of Joe's fist striking the side of his jaw cut off his cry. He struck heavily, his chest across the edge of the bottom step, rolling onto his back. Joe had relieved him of both guns before he completed that roll.

Thrusting his own weapon into his holster, the other through the belt of his pants, Joe looked upward along the stairs, checking the impulse to go up there and confront Jean Vanover. Thus thinking of her, it surprised him a little when he saw her standing there, a lithe, erect shape only faintly visible against the darkness of the stair head.

A good-natured grin slashed his face as he drawled: "Better luck next time." When she made no answer, he said tauntingly: "Now whose face is red?"

"Poor Keech." Her low voice came down to him. "You needn't have hit him so hard."

"You should be screamin'," Joe told her.

He could barely make out that she shook her head. "No. It seems I made a mistake. You'd better go now. Someone's coming down the hall."

He pivoted around and headed toward the door as he heard the m.u.f.fled tread of stockinged feet echoing down from that upper hallway. Going along between the buildings to Thrall's black, he wondered at the change in Jean Vanover. What had made her decide she'd made a mistake? Then he ceased wondering under the urgency of leaving this town as quickly as he could.

He was able to make out shadowy shapes through the swirling snow as he rode out of the head of the pa.s.sageway, turning away from the hotel and up street. Knowing he was safe until someone in the hotel gave the alarm, he put down the impulse to kick the black into a run.

Through the grayness Joe saw a man trudging down the awninged walk, collar turned high about his ears, head down, hands in pockets. He held the horse in a slow trot, lifting a hand to the man as be pa.s.sed. He smiled thinly as the man answered his wave. Farther along, he took the dogleg in the street and came abreast the big cottonwoods fronting the yards of the first houses; not all the leaves had left the trees yet, mute testimony to this storm's unseasonableness. He let the horse have its head and felt the animal's strong lunge into a run. Once again he found himself envying Thrall, the owner of the horse. The black had traveled some thirty miles tonight, and still had a lot left.

Joe rode hard and fast for an hour. When he judged he was half a mile or so short of Sommers's place, at the edge of the mesa, he left the trail angling directly north toward the shrouded hills. By that time the upcurling brim of his Stetston was filled flat by blown snow, and the wind howled with the same fierce intensity. But now it was warmer and lighter, and an occasional easing of the pall around him would give him a brief walled-in glimpse of a short reach of country. During one of those let-ups he got his exact bearing from a half mile distant spur of timber that he recognized. He swung off toward it, knowing that to follow its farther edge would shortly put him on the Troublesome.

He was faintly irritated by the knowledge that he was riding his own range, or land that had once been his, but was now Middle Arizona's. This brought alive again the sting of last night's welcome, of seeing Yace and of the fight with Ed Merrill. Merrill dead! For the first time Joe took in the full significance of the thing of which he stood accused. He could feel little regret over the man's fate. But his curiosity was alive now as to how they had come to fasten the murder on him. He had fought Merrill last night, yes, but what evidence had put Lyans and every able-bodied townsman out on the hunt for him? Only suspicion? No, he knew it couldn't be that. Bill Lyans wasn't a man to jump at conclusions; moreover, Joe remembered Bill as having been more tolerant toward him than the others five years ago. So it followed that the deputy must have some evidence that pointed directly to him, evidence that would have started inquiries. Clark had been in town and would have mentioned his leaving by the late freight. A wire to Junction would have brought the answer that he wasn't on the freight.

It fitted neatly, all the circ.u.mstantial evidence that last night had built against him-his fight with Merrill making him naturally suspect, the unknown evidence that had put Lyans on his trail, his leaving the freight. Now two more details would strengthen suspicion against him-his having gun-whipped Thrall and stolen the horse, and his encounter with Keech at the hotel. In another hour or two the word of his having been to Lodgepole would be out, and the hunt would he intensified.

He was lucky. The storm would hamper the posse while aiding him. He even stood a good chance of leaving the country if he chose, for rarely could he see more than 100 yards, and it would be a simple matter to avoid the trails that would surely be blocked by Lyans's posse men. But Joe put down that thought forcibly, and for a weightier reason than the one prompting him to leave the train last night. If he left now, with this murder on his head, he would spend the rest of his life as an outlaw. Merrill's family had influence. They would hound him for years.

So once again running was out. Instead, he'd head for the Broad Arrow cabin as he'd first planned, there to await Blaze, or maybe Clark. Between them, they should be able to work out a few leads that would eventually put them on the trail of whoever had killed Ed Merrill. And perhaps, just perhaps, that same trail would lead to a final security for Joe Bonnyman in this country.

By mid-morning Joe was well above the back edge of the mesa, high along Porcupine Caon. Once he glimpsed two riders pushing a small bunch of cattle downcaon. He saw them barely in time to keep from being discovered. Turning off into the tall cedars, he waited while the riders pa.s.sed. As he neared the head of Porcupine, close to the lower edge of broad Aspen Basin, he pa.s.sed a cabin, with its sod-roofed barn and single corral, that was new to him. By the time he struck the basin the snow was falling heavily again, the wind had slacked off, and he decided to ride straight across the six-mile width of the bowl-like depression.

He made that distance without once being able to see farther than half a dozen rods, following the twisting line of the Troublesome, rather than chancing losing direction by the more direct way of riding point. He knew he was across when the trees closed in on either side. Shortly he came to the crumbling embankment of the old abandoned stage road that led over Baldy Pa.s.s and eventually to Junction. Lyans would have put a man or two up near the pa.s.s to watch the road, Joe knew, and his face took on amus.e.m.e.nt at thought of the miserable hours they and the rest would spend today looking for him.

He had impulsively decided on the Broad Arrow cabin as a temporary refuge back at Anchor, intending only to find some spot where he could meet Blaze without being discovered. Now that he considered it more deliberately, the cabin seemed perfect for a permanent hide-out. Bill Lyans would reason that a man being hunted for murder would take the quickest way out of the country. That ruled out a search along the upper Troublesome, for that tangled wooded country came to a dead-end against the precipitous foot of Baldy, the highest peak within sight of Lodgepole, and had but one outlet, that one downward as far as the stage road. So for the time being, the homestead cabin that had witnessed Hoelseker's last struggle against this upper country's bitter winters seemed the safest possible spot to Joe.

Ten stiff-climbing miles along the streambed took him into the aspen belt. The snow had stopped falling, but there was enough wind to sift over Joe's tracks. And now the steep-walled gorge that flanked the stream widened and there was an occasional small meadow, its lush emerald gra.s.s white-blanketed, edged by copper-leaved scrub oak thickets and the faded gold background of the aspens. Joe recognized a landmark, the mast-like finger of a lightning-killed pine centering one of those small glades. Directly beyond, he entered a thick stand of majestic blue juniper. Hoelseker's cabin should be at the far edge of the next meadow.

He sighted the cabin through the trees, and at once his curiosity came alive, and wariness was in him as he took in certain details. The roof was newly sodded, and the clear wall of the small barn, its top logs rotted and broken as he remembered it, showed fresh-peeled poles below the roof line. The corral, which had recently been rebuilt, had three horses in it. Someone had taken over Hoelseker's homestead.

A keen regret struck Joe as he reined the black around. At that moment a voice drawled, close to him: "Go right on in, stranger."

Joe's glance came around and took in a spare-framed man leaning idly against the trunk of a juniper twenty feet away. A Winchester was cradled carelessly under the man's arm, yet Joe had the feeling that the weapon could cover him before he had the chance to reach for his own. Then he saw how ridiculous it was to suspect the man of anything but friendliness. News that a posse was out looking for a killer couldn't possibly have traveled to this isolated spot.

So his lean face took on a smile and he drawled: "I was figurin' to spend the night. Didn't know anyone was livin' here."

The man considered this, his gaunted face remaining impa.s.sive. Finally he put a question: "Lose your way?"

Joe nodded. "Until about an hour ago. This seemed closer than town. Some storm, eh?"

"Yeah." His face impa.s.sive, the man motioned with the rifle's barrel toward the cabin. "Go on in."

Joe decided again that the rifle was intended as no threat. He turned the black and headed out of the trees, sitting sideways in the saddle and looking back at the man who followed. "Been livin' here long?" he queried.

"A month maybe."

Joe hadn't expected that answer. Spring would be the time for a family to move into a hill layout like this, with four months in which to raise a garden, gather hay, and get ready for the winter. His respect for the man had a quick let-down.

"Hoelseker didn't have much luck up here," he remarked.

"Who's Hoelseker?"

The question had a note of unfriendliness Joe didn't miss. He decided that the man was irritable at having to extend common range courtesy, the never turning away of a stranger who was in need of shelter. He wondered what he would find in the cabin. A woman, children? Would they take money for a meal and a night's shelter?

He came up on the cabin and started angling down toward the corral, when the man's voice sounded from behind, harshly now: "Never mind that! We'll go in first."

Coming out of the saddle, Joe gave the man a steady glance that was answered by one of suspicion, near hostility. He heard the cabin door open, and turned. Standing in the doorway was a man more broad than tall, a man who at first looked fat, but wasn't. His bulky frame was barrel-chested and gave hint of a hard-muscled compactness. His round face was set in an enigmatic half smile, and he wore a gun low along a thick thigh.

His eyes pa.s.sed over Joe and went to the man beyond. "Well, Chuck?"

"Don't ask me, Mike," the man with the rifle replied. "Claims he's lost."

Mike's glance now came back to Joe and remained on him. Two other men came into view beyond the doorway. Abruptly Joe knew that this must be Mike Saygar, the rustler.

"Get his iron," Saygar said tersely.

Joe went rigid, then instantly ruled out any chance of drawing his gun. Chuck's rifle was now halfway lifted to shoulder, nicely covering him. Saygar's hand, as he spoke, had lifted to rest easily on the handle of his Colt.

As Chuck stepped in behind him and lifted his .45 from the holster, Joe asked quietly: "What is this?"

"You tell us," drawled Saygar. "Feel like talkin'?"

"About what?"

"Why you're here."

"Can't a man get lost without havin' to answer for it?"

Saygar's smile became genuine. "It's got to be better'n that, friend," he drawled. "This place is hard to find. Them outfits down on the mesa ain't. If you was lost, you'd have gone downcountry and made it a sure bet on runnin' into a warm bunkhouse and good grub."

Joe saw he had been tripped up by the other's logic. All at once a wide grin eased the severity of is face. "You win, Saygar. Didn't know you were up here. I wanted a place to disappear for a few days."

The outlaw's brows lifted as he heard himself called by name, and he considered what lay behind this stranger's claim. In the end he shrugged and turned in out of the doorway. "We can arrange that," he said. "Chuck, grain his jughead and get back down the trail. Step in, stranger."

Joe entered the cabin, feeling better. But one thing betrayed the pleasant way Saygar made him welcome. There was no offer to return his gun. He was a prisoner.?

Outlaw Powwow.

After a prolonged and open inspection of Joe, Saygar said easily: "You look played out, stranger. Help yourself to food and some shut-eye." He motioned to a low hogback stove in the cabin's far corner, to the Dutch oven, and the can of coffee sitting on it, and to the pair of double bunks along the back wall, before he turned his back on Joe to add: "Your deal, Whitey."

Saygar and his two men resumed their interrupted game of stud at the makeshift table near the door, seeming to forget their visitor. Joe's edgy vigilance eased off as he took a tin plate from the packing-box shelf behind the stove, and helped himself to coffee and a generous portion of the pork and beans he found in the Dutch oven. He was hungry and he was tired. Sitting down on one of the bunks, he wolfed the food, the coffee hitting his stomach in a warm, satisfying wave. When his plate was clean, he built a smoke and eased back in the bunk, resisting the urge to stretch out and sleep. He knew he would sleep in the end. But before that, he wanted time to think and to size up this situation.

Over the next quarter hour, he studied Saygar, and the other two, Whitey and Pecos. Saygar presented an enigma at first, for there was little about him to suggest his being the leader of these men. Yet the fact that Saygar's wild bunch had been a force for the Mesa Grande ranchers to contend with five years ago, and still remained one after this long lapse of time, was proof enough of the rustler's native shrewdness. And, watching Saygar, Joe could finally put his finger on certain qualities in the man that explained him. Not once did the run of cards cause Saygar to raise his voice or by the slightest change of expression betray an emotion. His luck didn't seem particularly good, yet he was gradually acc.u.mulating most of the matches that served as chips.

Once Saygar broke a heavy silence to say levelly: "Put it back, Whitey. Put it back."

Joe saw Whitey's face take on a quick flush. Whitey pushed his chair back and appeared about to lunge erect. He stared at Saygar with cold, furious eyes. Then, abruptly, his quick rebellion left him. Smiling crookedly, he tossed a card onto the table and drawled: "It was worth the try."

At that moment, Mike Saygar stirred from his impa.s.sivity to say cuttingly: "When you begin a thing, finish it, Whitey."

The blond young outlaw considered this plain invitation to back his play, which had been holding out an ace. But in the end he merely shrugged, saying querulously: "It's among friends, ain't it?"

Saygar laughed, and in his laugh was mockery that stung Whitey. But nothing happened, and in that small incident Joe saw what a hold Saygar had over his men. For Whitey was a type that Joe knew to be dangerous, vicious, arrogant, a typical gunman. His supple uncallused hands gave as strong a hint of his talents as the low-thonged holster at his flat thigh. The fact that he had allowed Saygar to accuse him of cheating at cards, and let the accusation go unanswered, was proof enough that Saygar himself must be uncommonly adept at handling a Colt.

This small incident reminded Joe strongly of the life he had just quitted in that bunkhouse high in the Tetons. Here he found the same breed of toughened indrawn men, the endless loafing around camp while awaiting an outbreak of the violence that sustained them. And here, as in Wyoming, he found a misfit. Pecos seemed nothing but an amiable, outspoken cowpuncher. He had little luck at the cards and complained good-naturedly about it in direct contrast to the other two, who played a silent, sober game. Joe decided that Pecos's worth to Saygar must lie in his knowledge of the country and cattle. Somewhere along Pecos's back trail must be an indiscretion or a petty crime that had forced him into this way of living. One day he might pull clear of it and go back to his old life. If he did, he'd be lucky; if he didn't, he wouldn't survive, for his slow wits and ordinary talents couldn't match those of the men he was traveling with. Joe felt a little sorry for Pecos, for he had himself been green and untoughened when circ.u.mstances threw him in with men like Saygar, Whitey, and Chuck outside on guard.

He was thinking of Pecos, vaguely wishing he could help him, when he eased back at full length in the bunk, pulled a blanket up over his legs, and let the pleasing languor of sleep ride over him.

Clark Dunne left the stage road and started up the Troublesome better than an hour after Joe, pushing his roan hard. He blamed Bill Lyans for this delay that was putting him at the Broad Arrow cabin behind Joe, instead of before him, for he knew that Saygar had last week moved down out of the higher hills and was making the cabin his temporary headquarters. Back at Anchor, Lyans had made his suspicions of Dunne quite obvious. As a friend of Joe's, Clark wasn't to be trusted alone today. So the deputy had paired Clark with Bill Murdock, and sent them on a wild-goose chase to cover the old stage road that led up over Baldy Pa.s.s.

Murdock hadn't caught on. High up toward the pa.s.s, within sight of Klingmeier's stage station, he had rebelled. "Shucks, what good's this doin' us?" he had grumbled. "I'm for takin' a swing down into the breaks. If Bonnyman come this way, he's ahead of us."

"Go ahead. I'll loaf around with Klingmeier," Clark had answered, and it had been agreed that they should meet at the stage station at dark.

Once Murdock had ridden out of sight in the smother of snow below the road, Clark had reined his roan around and put him at a lope back down the trail, trying to make up his lost time. The money Clark had taken from Acme's safe had been an uncomfortable prodding bulk in his hip pocket. Once he left Murdock, he changed it into the inside pocket of his coat, holding it in his hand a moment and looking down at it, his pulse quickening at the realization of what it was to mean to him. He hadn't counted it yet, but Vanover had said the safe held close to $9,000. This big fistful of banknotes was going to buy him his present security and a future, a future so limitless Clark was almost afraid to begin planning it. Saygar would get $4,000. The remaining $5,000, judiciously used, would more than quadruple Clark's present land holdings. It might even do better than that.

He was tired and on edge, had been since the moment Ed Merrill surprised him at the Land Office's alley door last night. He felt little remorse over having killed Merrill; he felt nothing but a deep resentment toward the man for having complicated an otherwise comparatively simple situation. But for Merrill's clumsiness, no one would have stood a prayer of ever finding out where Acme's money had gone. Clark, as the land company's new president, would have been least suspect, and Mike Saygar would have kept his mouth shut so long as he was paid off and his future dealings in stolen cattle a.s.sured.

Now there was some risk involved. Sooner or later the law would ask for a reckoning. It was, Clark decided, up to him to furnish Lyans with a victim. He had Neal Harper vaguely in mind as that victim. But first he had to see to Joe's leaving the country. Or did he? The thought made Clark jerk his roan to a stand. For a full minute he sat the saddle stock-still, considering the implications behind his thought. When he went on, he had the rudiments of an idea. As he traveled up the Troublesome in the thinning fall of snow, that idea took on clearer shape.

In the end, he saw Blaze as the only stumbling block to his plan. He hoped he hadn't betrayed himself to Blaze. He knew he hadn't been able to conceal outright surprise when the Anchor man informed him that Joe was headed for Hoelseker's abandoned cabin. But, he now reasoned, Blaze would have expected that reaction in him. And Blaze had been insistent on his heading up here first on the chance of seeing Joe. Blaze would himself be on his way to Joe as soon as he could leave Anchor without being followed. He'd probably be up sometime tonight.

The chance that Blaze might stumble in on things before he was quite ready for him set up a thin flow of irritation in Clark. He was feeling that irritation as he caught a far glimpse of the cabin and saw Chuck Reibel step from his place of concealment nearby in the trees and come into the trail.

"More company," Reibel said as Clark rode up. "Why don't they run a road up here, Dunne?"

Clark was invariably annoyed at the man's caustic manner, and had more than once cautioned Saygar to get rid of him for he had long ago judged Reibel the only one of Saygar's crew astute enough to be in this game for more than his share of the spoils. Once again he made mental note of this fact, intending to remind Saygar of it for the last time. However, he let none of his dislike show in his face or in his voice as he drawled: "So he got here?"

His answer surprised Chuck Reibel. "You knew he was comin'?"

Clark nodded, tilting his head in the direction of the cabin. "Send Mike out, will you? And don't let Bonnyman know what's up."

"Bonnyman?" The outlaw was visibly impressed. "Yace's son?"

"The same."

An indrawn expression clouded over Reibel's eyes. He was plainly trying to see what lay behind Joe Bonnyman's presence here. "I'll go get Mike," he said, and trudged off through the trees toward the narrow meadow, his boots leaving toed-in marks in the snow.

Clark's glance followed until the other was out of sight. Then he reached up to unbuckle his sheepskin coat, for the first time really aware of the rise in temperature. There was no breath of wind now, and overhead the sooty clouds were motionless and low-hanging. The stillness was like that momentary hush that precedes a thunderstorm. It would be raining soon, Clark judged. With rain on top of snow, the creeks would be over their banks before morning. The roundup crews would have the devil of a time with mud and rain and the streams impa.s.sable. Well, it didn't matter much what happened, Clark thought. The money in his pocket meant he wouldn't have to clean his range of stock. Tonight, when he got back to the layout, he'd send the cook up to tell the crew to ease up and gather only the moss horns and culls. After that he'd pay Neal Harper a visit.

Watching the cabin, Clark saw the door open and Mike Saygar come out. The outlaw paused by the door to stretch and yawn, then sauntered over to the corral where he leaned on the gate and built a smoke. Clark was only momentarily puzzled by the outlaw's move. When he saw that the fringe of trees grew to within thirty feet of where Saygar stood, he started circling toward the spot, keeping the cabin out of sight.

Clark left his roan well back in the cedars and, the thick trunk of one tree between him and the cabin, walked in on the corral.

Saygar heard him coming and said, not loudly: "Chuck claims that's Joe Bonnyman in there. What's this addin' up to?"

"You tell me." Clark was behind the tall cedar now. "He's got a posse on his tail. Me, for one. Last night Acme's safe was blown, and whoever did it cut down Ed Merrill makin' his getaway. Lyans says it was Bonnyman."

Saygar whistled softly. "Merrill dead? No wonder Lyans picked Bonnyman." He paused a moment, considering this news, coupling it with what he knew of last night's fight. Then: "Who did it?"

"No tellin'," Clark replied. "Have any trouble with Bonnyman?"

"Not any. He packed away some food and went to sleep." "I've got to get him out of here, Mike," Clark said abruptly. "Out and on a fast horse headed over the pa.s.s."

"And have him spread it around where to find me?" Saygar's thin, unamused laugh echoed faintly from the sheer wall beyond the trees. "Uhn-uh."

"But I tell you he'll hightail once he's left here. Who would he spread it to?"

Saygar was silent a brief moment. Finally: "It's up to you, friend. It's your neck as much as mine."

"Then tip off the boys." Clark's voice bore a note of relief. "Chuck can bring me in as though he's caught me on the trail. You can get careless and give me a chance at an iron, and Bonnyman and I will make a getaway. No one knows me, get it?"

"Yeah, but you'll have to play it plenty smooth, brother."

"I will. By the way, Mike, I've got that four thousand."