Troublesome Range Part 7

Saygar's head came quickly around in the first betrayal of his indolent pose against the corral poles. His eyes narrowed as he looked toward the tree's thick stem.

"Another of your uncles cash in?" he drawled.

"Call it that." Clark's tone was brittle. "I'll lay it here on the ground."

The outlaw's glance still clung to the base of the tree. When Clark moved halfway into view, their eyes met. Clark's look was clearly belligerent. The outlaw, reading his own meaning into that glance, smiled meagerly. "You'd be smart to turn someone in for that job, Clark."

"Why me?"

Saygar shrugged. "Why not? It'd set you pretty tight with Acme and Lyans."

"It's an idea." Clark's face now echoed the outlaw's smile. "Noticed how the weather's turnin' off warmer?" he drawled.

Saygar nodded. "There'll be the devil to pay for a week or so. Think the cabin here will be safe enough?" He tilted his head in the direction of the meadow, out of which the stream's rushing waters sent across a subdued echo.

"You won't have to worry about that. You're movin' out." "Movin'? Where to?" Saygar's frown expressed his puzzlement. In the next few minutes Clark answered that question for him in minute detail.

Bushwhacked.

Whitey was feeding the hogback stove one of the big quarter rounds of cedar as Saygar came back into the cabin after his talk with Clark. The clang of the stove's door brought Joe fully and instantly awake. Saygar heard him stir, and glanced toward the semidarkness of the bunk wall. He resumed his seat at the table where now a lamp had been lit, trying not to let his irritation show. Now that Joe was awake, Saygar wouldn't have the chance to tell Whitey and Pecos of Clark's plan.

"Let's lift the lid off this game," Whitey drawled as he picked up the cards for the deal.

"Help yourselves," Saygar replied. "Dollar limit?"

Whitey's tone had borne an edge of truculence, and Pecos looked worried. It was obvious to Joe, who now lay watching them resume their game, that Saygar was so far the winner. The daylight showing through the cabin's single window was dimmer now and rain pelted against the sash and set up a faint pleasing murmur of sound as it slanted onto the sod roof. The air in the cabin was stale and damp. Joe kicked the blanket to the foot of the bunk and closed his eyes again, feeling the need for more sleep.

Presently the muted sound of a gunshot stirred him out of a brief doze to open-eyed alertness. He saw Saygar rise quickly from the table and head for the door, palming his Colt smoothly from holster. Pecos turned in his chair, breathing-"Not another visitor."-and Whitey half rose before deciding to stay in his chair.

At the door, Saygar turned momentarily and nodded to the back of the room, telling Whitey: "Watch him." Only then did he inch open the door.

The outlaw's brief glance outside made him swing the door wide and slowly holster his .45. From the back of the room, Joe could see a narrow wedge of the meadow, its snowy surface now grayed by the rain. Two figures trudged into sight less than 100 yards away. The one behind, with the rifle slanted into the back of the man in front, was Chuck.

Joe could almost feel the hard pressure of the rifle nudging his own spine as he recognized the tall, sheepskin-clad shape of the man ahead of the outlaw. That man was Clark Dunne. Joe swung his legs off the bunk and sat up.

"Stay set, stranger," came Whitey's threatening drawl.

Pecos reached over and turned down the lamp.

So Blaze had, after all, told Clark about the mark over the shelf in Anchor's wagon shed. Clark had come here expecting to find Joe alone, and had walked straight into Saygar's guard. For the second time today, Saygar was being compelled to take an unwanted prisoner. Only Chuck had encountered a little more difficulty in bringing Clark in. The gunshot bore testimony to that.

In the next few seconds, Joe saw that he and Clark had been placed in a precarious situation. Saygar would naturally a.s.sume that two men having come up the trail, more might be on the way in. Where he'd been fairly good-natured about Joe's appearing in his camp, he would look on this second intrusion with suspicion. A man in Saygar's position couldn't afford to let word of his whereabouts get out. It naturally followed that he would have to take every precaution to keep his two visitors from leaving and carrying word down about him. Joe and Clark might be held prisoners for days, at least until Saygar had finished whatever errand had brought him to this cabin.

Joe felt Whitey's glance on him, but didn't look toward the table as Clark approached. Clark stopped several strides short of the door. Anger touched his eyes as he looked at Saygar and said: "A little outside your fences, aren't you, Saygar? How much of this country do you call yours?"

"As much as I need to move around in," drawled Saygar. "Any objection?" When Clark made no reply, the outlaw looked beyond him at Chuck Reibel and asked: "Why the fireworks?" "He was a little slow about reachin' for his ears. Had to help him make up his mind."

Clark cut in with a curt: "You've got Joe Bonnyman in there?"

"Supposin' we have?" was Saygar's rejoinder.

Joe's attention left them as their talk went on, his glance coming around to Whitey and Pecos at the table. Pecos was on his feet now and standing out from his chair to look out the door. Whitey no longer peered so intently toward the back of the room, his attention having momentarily strayed the way of Pecos's.

The blanket was within Joe's reach. He s.n.a.t.c.hed it up as he came to his feet. Gathering it into a loose ball, he threw it hard at Whitey. The blond youth sensed movement behind him and turned. Seeing the blanket coming, he dodged, at the same time reaching for his gun. But the blanket spread out and caught him in the face. Joe lunged sideways as Whitey's .45 arced up and exploded. The next instant Joe was across the room, numbing Whitey's wrist with a quick downward slash of his hand and wrenching the gun from the outlaw's hand as Saygar spun around.

Joe rocked the gun into line with the outlaw. "Go ahead, try for it," he drawled, for Saygar's right hand had lifted part way to holster and frozen there.

Out in the yard, Clark said-"Nice, Joe."-even though Chuck had moved in and was prodding him in the back with the Winchester. Whitey finished clawing the blanket from around his head and stood straight, holding his hurt wrist.

For a moment it looked as though he were going to throw himself at Joe until Saygar said sharply: "Whitey!" Pecos had already seen the look on Joe's face and lifted his hands.

"Tell your understrapper out there how to behave, Saygar," Joe drawled.

The outlaw briefly considered the rock-steady gun aimed at his belt, then called: "You heard what he said, Chuck!"

A moment later Clark had the rifle. Joe made a motion toward the door with the .45. "The air's better outside, gents."

When they stood grouped a few steps out from the doorway, Joe, in possession of the two remaining six-guns and a rifle he had found over by the bunks, moved over to where Clark stood.

"Hold 'em while I get a horse," he said, and started out for the corral, his bare head tilted against the slant of the rain.

As soon as he was out of hearing, Clark smiled at Saygar. "Better than the way we planned it, eh?"

Whitey, in ignorance of what was being referred to, bridled. "Just what in blazes is this?" he demanded.

"Later, Whitey, later," Saygar said. Then to Clark: "What'll you do with him?"

"See him up the pa.s.s road a ways."

"That all?"

"That's all," Clark said.

"How about our irons? And that bronc'?" Saygar nodded toward the corral, where Joe was throwing his saddle onto a stocky chestnut horse.

"You'll get 'em back."

The answer brought a thin smile to Saygar's face. Although he said nothing, he was sure now of something he hadn't been at all sure of when he and Clark talked near the corral an hour before.

When Joe came back from the corral, he went into the cabin, and reappeared with his Stetson and poncho. He made the outlaws cross to the lower edge of the meadow, where Clark's roan was standing. Then, with Clark in the saddle beside him, he looked down at Saygar.

It's a fair trade on the horse," he said. "I'll hang your guns from a tree a ways down the trail. Much obliged for the meal, Saygar."

"Sure," the outlaw said, his face bearing its customary meaningless half smile. "Stop in any time you feel like it."

Joe and Clark headed down through the trees. Just below the meadow Joe left the three Colts hanging by their trigger guards on the stub branch of a dead cedar close to the trail. He took more pains with the rifles, hiding them in the high crotch of a big pine farther on. Clark, who hadn't spoken since leaving the meadow, now said: "It looked to me like we'd be coolin' our heels there a few days. How'd you do it?"

"Luck," Joe told him.

Clark shook his head. "You call it that. But it took something else, too." He spoke in honest admiration. "Here's some luck you maybe weren't countin' on. The road over the pa.s.s is clear. Lyans put me and Murdock up here to cover it. Murdock's made a swing down into the breaks and is to meet me at dark up at Klingmeier's. So you can get through."

"Why should I?"

Clark looked quickly around at Joe. "Why shouldn't you?" "Clark, I hopped off that freight out by Baker's last night because I was tired of runnin'. I still am."

"Hang it, man, they're tryin' to saddle you with killin' Ed Merrill! Or didn't you know?"

"I know," Joe answered, and told Clark about his visit to town that morning. He finished with a question: "How were they so sure it was me?"

"Your horsehair hatband," Clark answered. "You must've lost it in the fight. Someone found it and framed you by leavin' it on Merrill."

Joe nodded. "And you still say I should hightail?" He laughed soberly. "Not this time, Clark. I ran once and it didn't work. Then it didn't matter what people thought of me. Now it does."

"It shouldn't."

"That's where you're wrong. But we'll skip that. What I can't skip, though, is this bird that takes the trouble to hang a robbery and a murder on me. I reckon I'll stick around and find out who he is."

Their arguing grew more heated, Joe clinging stubbornly to his decision, Clark naming every reason he could think of to counter it. Unconsciously they rode a little faster, flanked most of the way by the swollen stream that was already crowding its banks and giving promise of what was to come tomorrow when the rain and the melting snow had their effect. The rain was a thin spitting at their backs and the light was failing.

When they came to the stage road above the basin, Clark drew rein and turned in the saddle to face his friend. "Still stickin' to it?" he queried. "Where you headed to?"

Joe nodded downward: "Home. They won't be lookin' for me there. Blaze and I can think out something."

"Why not my place? I'll go up and meet Murdock and be down around midnight."

"No. Anchor's better. Thanks anyway."

Clark shrugged and grinned. "See you, then. I'll keep in touch with Blaze." He reined out into the road and started up it.

Joe sat watching his friend for a long moment, thinking how lucky he was to be having Clark and Blaze to side him during this bad time. The brief interval just ended had brought back a little of the feel of the old days. He and Clark had been wild and carefree then, with nothing much depending on the outcome of their tomfoolery. This was different. Whatever they did now counted. It was a good bracer for a man to find that his friends were still with him.

Half a mile above the place he'd left Joe, Clark took a backward look along the trail and swung sharply away from it, striking downcountry through the jack pine. He went faster now, cutting across occasional draws whose beds already ran water. He climbed a ridge and paused there long enough to scan the timbered reach of country in the direction Joe was traveling. The rain had turned misty and a thin fog obscured Clark's sight of the basin and the timber this side of it. But he knew this country well and slanted off the ridge a little eastward.

Twenty minutes' travel brought him abruptly to the upper edge of Aspen Basin. Reining in before clearing the trees, he came out of the saddle and tied his roan. He took his Winchester from its scabbard and deliberately levered a sh.e.l.l into the chamber. Moving several paces to the left so that a broad rounded boulder lay between him and the open ground ahead, he looked out and downward to the twisting black line that marked the Trouble-some's far bank.

He had a long wait, longer than he had counted on. As the minutes dragged by, he fidgeted restlessly, first sitting on the boulder, then standing behind it. He changed the rifle from one hand to another, and finally leaned it against the boulder's back face, choosing a patch where the snow had melted to rest the heel of the stock. Twice his hand went automatically in under his sheepskin coat to the pocket of his shirt that held his tobacco; each time the hand came away empty. And during this seemingly endless interval his glance clung to the narrow indentation in the timber that marked the line of the Troublesome. His eyes were squinted, for he was facing into the misty slant of the rain.

The light wasn't so strong now and Clark imagined that the fog was thickening. Down by the creek it seemed to be rising from the foaming water in a billowy cloud as if purposely obscuring what lay off there. All at once a shadow moved through the murky fall of mist edging the creek. It moved down and out of the trees and along the stream's far bank. Clark stiffened and went to one knee, reaching for the rifle and laying it across the boulder. For a moment he saw the slow-walking chestnut horse plainly, saw Joe riding with his head down as though deeply in thought. Clark laid his sights on Joe's chest, but at the instant his finger tightened on trigger the mist closed in again, and all he could make out was a vague shape moving on away from him.

His sights picked up the target again. Only now Joe's back was toward him, and that fact heightened a strong nervousness that was in him. Only by a concentrated effort could he keep from trembling as he took a deep breath, exhaled slowly, and squeezed the trigger.

At the last moment the gray mist made Joe indistinct once more. The rifle's sharp crack seemed deadened by the blanket of thin fog. He saw Joe's outline move violently as the chestnut shied. Then Joe was falling sideways from the saddle, and the horse was running back toward the trees.

Clark stood up and slowly levered the empty from the .30-30. He put the empty in his pocket. His face was drawn, bloodless, gray. Momentarily the fog thinned and he could see Joe lying there, 200 yards away, close to the creek. A sure instinct told him his bullet had gone where he wanted it. The shot had felt right.

He turned and without another backward look went across to the roan. Swinging up into the saddle, he rode back the way he had come.

A Hide-Out.

The faint far-off snap of the rifle shot sounded above the hoof thud of Blaze Coyle's pony and the murmur of the rain. The Anchor foreman pulled his gelding to a stand and sat stiffly, listening. A quarter minute failed to bring him any further sound that might explain the first. At length he muttered-"We're spooky, fella."-and put the gelding on up along the line of the Trouble-some's left bank. He was a little better than halfway across the basin.

As the gray dusk thickened about him, Blaze knew he should be hurrying, making the most of what light there was left. But he didn't hurry. He was reluctant to meet Joe without quite knowing why he felt that way. All day he had puzzled over the details of Merrill's death and the fact of Joe's sudden change of mind about leaving. His thinking had netted him little beyond a vague, indefinable uncertainty over Joe; this uncertainty he stolidly refused to recognize, for it was something he didn't have the right to think upon until Joe had had his chance to explain. It was because he was afraid Joe couldn't explain that Blaze was taking his time, delaying his arrival at the cabin up along the Troublesome.

Blaze had had a full day. This morning he had ridden up Porcupine in the height of the storm to check on the crew. Back at Anchor shortly after noon, he had found Yace saddling a horse. The rancher wanted to go across and see John Merrill.

"He'd likely shoot you," had been Blaze's caustic comment when he found where Yace was going.

"Joe didn't kill Ed. John knows that," Yace had said briefly.

He and Blaze had ridden west from Anchor on the Brush trail. They hadn't talked with Merrill. Coming in on the layout, they'd spotted the doctor's buggy under the lean-to shed alongside the barn and another by the main hitch rail at the house. As they rode up to the house, Fred and Jean Vanover had come out the door with Ruth Merrill.

Her father, Ruth had told them quietly, had had a stroke on learning of Ed's death. The doctor wouldn't say how bad it was, but Ruth was afraid it was quite serious. Blaze and Yace had expressed their sympathy and offered their help. The girl thanked them. She wanted to know what the posse had accomplished in the hunt for Joe and seemed glad when Yace said stoutly: "Nothin', ma'am. And they won't."

Vanover and his daughter had driven out the lane with the two Anchor men. At the forks in the trail below Brush's big pasture, Vanover had pulled in to say: "Bonnyman, what about this talk I hear?"

"What talk?" Yace's tone had been curt.

"That I had my own men break open that safe."

"Whoever claims that is a fool." Yace had been emphatic. "What's more to the point is that Harper might have been riled about losin' his job, riled enough to collect what he figures you owe him."

Vanover had showed a steady check on his temper. He had said merely: "I'm looking into that matter, Bonnyman. Good day." The rain had seemed to push Yace down into a deeper mood of depression. He had retired behind a wall of testy silence ever since Lyans's departure this morning. Consequently Blaze had been glad to give the excuse that he was going back up Porcupine to spend the night with the crew. Yace had accepted his explanation without comment.

It was now plain to Blaze that more lay behind the Acme robbery than any of them had supposed this morning. It had erased the last remnant of good feeling bred by last night's meeting. The old suspicions had come to life once more. Even Fred Vanover couldn't be sure that his own men hadn't betrayed him. Vanover had made a mistake in disclosing his uncertainty. He was the wrong man for his job, always had been. The cattle company needed a man with Vanover's brains and Harper's cold mercilessness. Vanover was too soft, too reasonable. Blaze felt sorry for the man as he saw what might be coming. He liked Vanover.

He now shrugged away these unwelcome thoughts and touched the gelding lightly with spurs, sending the animal on at a faster trot. Ahead, the broad sweep of the basin was a dusk-bordered sodden gray reach of melting snow. Close to his left the creek roared an ominously strengthening note. Until now, Blaze hadn't given much thought to what tomorrow would bring. At this moment, he did; there would be maybe a week's delay in driving down to the railroad and in shipping. To an outfit as big as Anchor, which hired ten extra men for roundup, that week's delay represented a sizable expense. And, as always, Blaze accepted this unlooked-for trouble as a personal one, so conscientiously did he take his job. The storm was bad enough. This matter of Joe's trouble made it . . .

The gelding's sudden sideward shying cut in rudely on Blaze's thoughts. He said-"Whoa, you jughead!"-glancing toward the creek to see what had frightened the animal.

An instant later he was vaulting from the saddle, dropping reins and running over to the sprawled figure he had already recognized. Transfixed by horror he knelt beside Joe, peering down at the crimson stain on the snow around his friend's head. Then, gently, he lifted Joe's upper body. The head sagged back loosely at what Blaze first thought was an inhuman angle.

"Joe! Joe, boy! Answer me!" he cried hoa.r.s.ely.

His hand went to Joe's chest, and his panic subsided as he felt the even beat of the heart. His eyes moistened as relief and thankfulness. .h.i.t him.

Calmly, methodically Blaze made the next few minutes count for all they were worth. He took off his poncho and put it under Joe. He unlaced his blanket from the saddle and wrapped it around the unconscious man. For the moment, he could do nothing about the wound, which was an ugly deep bullet crease high along the side of Joe's head.