Fight for Powder Valley! (2 page)

“You … you don't mind?”

“Mind? Oh God, Joe. If you only knew how I've prayed …”

“That's all right then. That's wonderful. I might have known you'd take it like that. But I got to worrying after I made the deal. A man never knows about a woman. Some of them are funny about leaving their homes.…”

“We're really going to leave, Joe? It's all settled?”

“Yep. I signed the papers today. Bank took over the farm … gave me five hundred dollars clear over and above the mortgage. That's not much, but …”

“Much? It sounds like a million dollars to me. Why, with five hundred dollars … that's enough to get started again.”

“Yep. That's what I figured. When it all came up so sudden …”

“I'll have to get off a letter to Mother,” Molly planned happily. “Just think, Joe, she's never seen any of her grandchildren. How soon can we leave? When shall I tell her we'll arrive?”

Joe's face wore a confused look of fright. “You haven't let me tell you, honey. We're not going back. We're headed West. To Colorado. To Powder Valley.” He rolled the words out softly as though they tasted good on his lips. “How does that sound to you?”

Molly drew back from him. She groped behind her, caught hold of a kitchen chair and settled herself carefully in it. “Powder Valley? What do you mean, Joe?”

“Why, it's all settled. Luckiest thing in the world. The man happened to be right there in the bank while I was talking to Mr. Morgan. It's a big land company. Irrigation, Molly! That's the ticket. No more waiting for it to rain … and then getting a flood. Irrigation's the coming thing. All the water you want when you want it. It's virgin soil. Never been touched by a plow. You can grow anything. Garden truck. Fruit. You can have a flower garden. It's a valley in the mountains, honey. Protected by the hills from heavy snow. They're building a dam right now to store up water for the farmers that'll be flocking in.”

“And you … you mean you've … already decided …?”

“I had to, Molly. A chance like that doesn't come every day. We're the first buyers and we got our pick. Fifty acres right in the bottom-land. Ten dollars an acre is all it costs. Imagine that … for land that'll be worth a hundred an acre as soon as it's under cultivation. You see, they want settlers to move in and get things started. The price will go up as soon as word gets around. It's cool in Colorado, Molly. Bright sunlight and clear air. And there's hunting and trapping in the winter … why, Mr. Shultz says a man can feed his family the year 'round on game and fish.”

“Powder Valley?” Molly repeated again, as though the two words hypnotized her.

“It isn't so far from here. Only a couple of hundred miles. A nice little vacation trip, Molly. Like when we first came to Kansas. Do you remember?”

Molly nodded. Yes, she remembered.

“I thought we'd make out a list of what we can take in the wagon and have a sale to get rid of everything else. That'll bring in enough money to get us there all right.”

Joe Hartsell was striding up and down the kitchen, pounding a bony fist into a calloused palm. The two children had drawn back into the doorway, watching him out of big, interested eyes. Baby-Doll kept her place on the floor, again trying to draw nourishment out of her big toe.

“It'll be pioneering, Molly. Real pioneering this time. It's what I was looking for when we first came West. We shouldn't have stopped here. We should have kept on going. But it's not too late. Powder Valley. West to Powder Valley! Doesn't that sort of wake up the blood in your veins?”

Molly said, “Yes, Joe.” She slowly arose from her chair. There was an exalted look of martyrdom on her pinched features. She whispered, “Yes, Joe. If that's what you want,” and caught him to press a fierce kiss on his astonished lips.

2

A feeling of pride always welled up inside Pat Stevens when he rode down into Powder Valley from the headquarters of the Lazy Mare ranch at the northern end of the valley. It wasn't so much a specific pride in ownership of one of the largest and finest spreads in the valley; it was more a deep-rooted sense of fulfillment, a feeling of belonging, an awed sort of pride in the realization that he, Pat Stevens, had had an integral part in making Powder Valley what it was today—one of the finest strips of cattle country in the entire West.

Serene and peaceful under the bright Colorado sunlight, Powder Valley stretched out southward from the Lazy Mare ranch a distance of some thirty miles, protected on the north by the Culebra Range, with the jagged Spanish Peaks forming a natural barrier on the southwest. A protected region of lush range grass, with mild winters that were just cold enough to build firm flesh on the sturdy, big-boned Herefords that Pat had been instrumental in bringing to the valley years before, it was, indeed, virtually a cattleman's paradise. In the spring and summer the herds ranged high on the mountain slopes that had been blanketed with snowball winter to provide sufficient moisture for the raw growth of rich grass, and in the fall the stock was moved down into the protected valley to winter-feed on the long grass that grew knee-high in the bottom-lands on each side of straggling Powder Creek.

Powder Valley had not always been a scene of serenity and peace, nor had Pat Stevens always been a respectable and settled land-owner. Both had a turbulent history of bloodshed and violence; both had, in a sense, attained respectability together.

It had been more than ten years, now, since Pat Stevens had ridden into the valley with his two gun-fighting partners, Sam Sloan and One-Eyed Ezra, to do battle with the West's most vicious gang of outlaws; a fight to the death that ended by overthrowing the reign of terror that had held the valley in thralldom and making it a place where honest men could once more ride abroad in safety and in peace.

It had ended, too, the wild free life that Pat Stevens had known before. Sally Stevens had seen to that. Marriage to Sally had been good for Pat. She had given him a son and a sense of responsibility.

Now it was a mellowed and a mature Pat Stevens who rode away from the Lazy Mare toward the little town of Dutch Springs one afternoon in late spring. Slightly heavier, though still retaining the trim lines given him by a vigorous youth spent in the saddle, with a tinge of premature gray, now, along the edges of his hair; his gray eyes were clear and bright, without that steely hardness that had been characteristic of them when he had worn two guns in open holsters and his gaze had challenged any man to draw against him.

Always, when Pat rode down into the valley nowadays, he drank in the clear cool air of the high mountain valley and let his gaze roam over the peaceful scene with a queer uneasy sense of foreboding within him. It was crazy, of course. There was no reason for it. Except—well, sometimes he thought it was just too damn' good to be true. Sometimes it seemed to him that he was standing off by the side and critically surveying himself as he rode. Not a worry in the world. Yet, long ago, he had learned that life has a way of providing irritations just when things are going along the smoothest.

Somehow, it just didn't seem as if the Lord intended men to have things too easy. And maybe that was for the best, he ruminated. A man had a way of getting soft inside when things went along too smooth. As he rounded a turn that opened out the long vista of the valley to his gaze, he noted some small objects moving down in the bottoms against the background of green willows that lined the creek banks.

He pulled up his horse and frowned at the sight, wondering which of his neighboring ranchers was disregarding tradition by grazing the rich feed that was always left for winter forage.

His frown deepened when he realized the small objects were not grazing cattle or horses, but were human beings. Men on foot. This was a sight so alien to the cattle country that Pat Stevens couldn't believe his eyes at first.

But that's what they were all right. Three or four of them in a group, and another one by himself standing back a few hundred yards from the others.

From the road, Pat couldn't be sure whether they were on Lazy Mare property or across the line on John Boyd's Bar X spread which joined his ranch on the south.

He sat easily in the saddle with his Stetson tipped back on his head, a speculative light in his eyes. It couldn't be boys hunting jack rabbits—and it wasn't a fencing crew.

He jiggled the reins and turned his horse off the road to ride down that way and satisfy his curiosity.

As he rode nearer he saw that the unmounted men were on Bar X property, about a mile back from the creek. He still couldn't figure out what they were doing there. He now saw there were four of them altogether. One seemed to be going quite a distance ahead, while two others followed him, remaining a certain distance apart and stopping briefly to stoop down at stated intervals. Funniest darned way of acting he ever had seen. And they were grown men, too.

When he got close enough to see that the man who remained alone in the rear was standing in front of a queer-looking brass instrument mounted on three wooden legs, Pat suddenly realized what the men were, doing. His bronze face relaxed in a chuckle at his own expense. They were surveyors, that's what. Measuring off a line with a chain made of iron links. He had seen government surveyors running section lines before, and he should have known that's what it was. But he wondered why government surveyors were bothering to run section lines through John Boyd's ranch. That wasn't his property line. Boyd owned all the land right down to the creek.

The surveyor was leaning forward looking through his brass telescope when Pat rode up. He was waving to a man almost half a mile ahead. The man had a pole painted with red and white stripes, and he moved the pole back and forth as the man at the instrument waved to him.

Pat cocked one leg over the saddlehorn and rolled a cigarette, watching the proceedings with grave interest. Kind of a funny way to do, he thought indulgently, worrying about a few inches this way or that when there were so dang many miles of open country up and down the creek that it didn't really matter where a section line went. But that was their business, he reckoned, just like his was cattle raising.

The surveyor was a young man, under thirty, Pat thought. He wore leather boots laced tightly all the way up to his knees, with fancy riding pants that were like a little boy's britches. He had on a khaki shirt buttoned up tight at the neck with a black four-in-hand tie, and on his head was a hard-brimmed Stetson like soldiers and Easterners wore.

He hadn't been West very long, Pat decided, appraising him as he continued to be finicky about where the man in front put his painted pole. His features were sunburnt and the skin was peeling from his cheeks. The backs of his hands were red and blistered also. That always happened to Easterners when they were first exposed to the deceptively mild Colorado sun.

The surveyor began frantically waving both hands over his head as though he had suddenly gone mad. He stepped back from his three-legged surveying instrument and nodded to Pat with a pleasant, “Good afternoon.”

He had a smooth agreeable voice, and a well-knit body that showed strength without bulkiness.

Pat Stevens said, “Howdy.” Then drawled, “Runnin' some sections lines, I reckon?”

The young man smiled and took out a white handkerchief to mop his face. He said, “Yes. That's what I'm doing right now.”

“How-come that Boyd is surveying off this creek section? Is he aimin' to fence it in?” asked Pat curiously.

The surveyor said, “Boyd?” in a tone of surprise, screwing up his face.

“Yeh. The fellow you're workin' for. This is the Bar X ranch.”

“Oh. I see who you mean. The rancher who owns the rest of this property.” The surveyor negligently waved his hand westward, away from the creek. “I didn't know his name.”

“What do you mean … rest of this property?” Pat demanded. “John's holdin's ran all the way to the creek the last I heard.”

“They don't now. This is his new property line that I'm surveying.”

“You mean John's sold this creek section?”

The surveyor nodded. “Not only this section but two more south of here.”

Pat said, “I'll be doggoned. Who bought 'em from him?”

“The Colorado Western Land and Development Company owns all this creek land now.”

Pat Stevens suddenly tensed in the saddle. He lowered his lids, making his gray eyes into slits. “That's a mighty important-sounding name you just said. What do they aim to do with John's sections?”

“Develop it for farming. It's an irrigation project. It's not only these three sections but a strip a mile wide on each side of the creek all along the floor of the valley.”

Pat's face grew hard. He struck a match and held it to the tip of his soggy half-smoked cigarette. He drew a puff of smoke into his lungs and let it roll out of his nostrils, then queried quietly, “You mean on beyond north of the Bar X too?”

The surveyor drew a folded map from his pocket and spread it out on the ground. He squatted down and squinted at the black lines. He nodded. “I go a mile beyond the Bar X line … take in one section from … uh … the Lazy Mare ranch.”

Pat slid out of the saddle and dropped his reins to the ground. “I'd be obliged for a look at that map,” he said gruffly. “My name's Pat Stevens.”

“Certainly, Mr. Stevens. My name is Ross Culver.” The surveyor stood up and extended his hand. Pat took it and received a firm handclasp.

Culver squatted again, moving aside so Pat could lean over and see the map. “All this shaded area is company property,” the surveyor explained. “See, we own a solid block on both sides of the creek up and down the valley. A mighty fine and promising project,” he went on enthusiastically. “As soon as we get our irrigation system in, we'll transform all this wasteland into a really productive tract.”