Fight for Powder Valley! (3 page)

Pat was staring down at the map with slitted eyes. “Where's the line between the Bar X and the Lazy Mare?” he demanded.

Culver promptly put the tip of his finger on the map. “Right there. And about here is where we are now.” He moved his finger down the edge of the shaded area a quarter of an inch.

“There's something wrong,” Pat told him quietly. “You'd better check up on your deeds before you do any more surveying.”

“That's impossible,” Culver smiled. “I checked the records in the land office at Denver before coming out.”

“All the same, there's some mistake. The Lazy Mare is my ranch. I haven't sold a foot of it to any irrigation company for farmers.”

Ross Culver continued to smile amiably. “There isn't any mistake, Mr. Stevens. I don't make mistakes.”

Pat settled back on his haunches. His slitted gray eyes bored into the surveyor's face. “There's something wrong,” he repeated emphatically. “Do you think I or any of the other ranchers in the valley would be fools enough to sell our creek land to some company to settle farmers on? Why, they'd be putting up fences, blocking our stock off from water, putting a plow to that grass land …”

“I'm starting a fencing crew tomorrow,” Culver told him quietly. “This is progress, Mr. Stevens. You ranchers can't impede the westward march of civilization. Why, a hundred families can live off one section where you graze a few head of cattle in the winter.”

Pat Stevens compressed his lips. “That's plumb foolish talk. This is range land, not farmin' country. You can't raise crops here. Growin' season is too short. An' what would a farmer do with crops if he could raise 'em? It's hundreds of miles to market.”

Culver shrugged his shoulders and began to roll up his map. “I'm not an agricultural expert,” he confessed. “I'm an engineer and I've been employed to do a job in Powder Valley. When we get our dam built at the source of the creek, and the spring floods impounded in a reservoir …”

Pat interrupted him fiercely. “Dam? Reservoir?” He choked over the words. “By God, no! Not as long as there's a gun left in Powder Valley and a man to trigger it.”

Ross Culver smiled pityingly. “I'm afraid you're living in the past, Mr. Stevens. Before I came West I heard a lot about the two-gun desperados I was likely to meet, but I notice the ranchers hereabout seem a peaceful law-abiding lot. None of them go armed any more.” He glanced at Pat's gunless hips significantly.

“There's guns aplenty in this valley,” Pat assured him. “As you'll be findin' out if you try to put up fences and build dams on our property.”

“But it isn't your property any more,” the young surveyor argued. “I've seen the recorded deeds to every section I'm surveying.”

“I don't know about the others, but I
do
know I haven't sold a section of the Lazy Mare …” Pat stopped abruptly. His jaw sagged. He stared at Culver in consternation.

“I did sell a section last winter. But not to any land company. A man named Biloff … from down on the Pecos River in Texas, he said he was. Wanted a section to experiment with raisin' hawses. Figgered on breeding Arabians with Morgan stock for cow-hawses, an' figgered to come up here in the high country to give 'em strong hearts and lung capacity while they were growin' up. But he only wanted one section. I sold him that … thinkin' it'd be a fine thing to get a better grade of hawses than we mostly get out here.”

“Did you say his name was Biloff?”

“That's right. Jud Biloff. Paid me a hundred dollars for the section. I let him have it cheap because he'd put most of his cash money into thoroughbred studs and couldn't afford to pay more.”

Ross Culver whistled shrilly. “Six hundred and forty acres for a hundred dollars? You practically gave it to him. I happen to know the company is pricing small tracts at ten dollars an acre … and that's before the irrigation system is in. Once we get it under cultivation, it'll be worth fifty dollars an acre easily.”

Pat waved his hand with a savage gesture of indifference. “I'm not worrying about that now. I'm wonderin' if Biloff double-crossed me and sold my section to your company.”

“I imagine that's what happened,” Culver said indifferently. “As a matter of fact, the president of our company is named Biloff. A tall man with black hair and a mustache …”

“That's him,” Pat said excitedly. He gripped the surveyor's shoulder. “He must have lied to me. All the time he must have been figgering on sellin' it to farmers instead of raisin' hawses. But he knew I wouldn't sell it if he told me the truth … so he straight out lied.”

Culver shrugged. “Rather smart business.”

“Smart, is it?” snarled Pat. His fingers gnawed into the flesh of Culver's shoulder. “I'm bettin' he bought all the rest of this bottom land the same crooked way. Told each one of the ranchers he just wanted their one or two or three sections, without letting on he was buying the rest of it … or what he was buyin' it for … and ended up with deeds to this whole strip up and down the creek. It's the heart of Powder Valley, that creek is. If we let it get fenced-off … good God, boy, don't you see what that'll mean to all the ranches that depend on the creek for waterin' their stock.”

Culver shrugged from under Pat's tightly gripping fingers and stepped back. He seemed to grow in stature, and his voice was firm and strong:

“None of these things concern me in the slightest degree. I've been hired to do a job … and I intend to see it through.”

“Doesn't it matter to you that all this property was bought by trickery?”

Culver shook his head. “Business ethics aren't any concern of mine. In fact, I can't blame Mr. Biloff much under the circumstances. A selfish few ranchers should not be allowed to stand in the way of progress.”

Pat Stevens folded his arms and listened with stony calm until the engineer had finished. Then he said quietly, “There'll be shootin' if you try to run your line past that Bax X fence yonder.”

Culver laughed indulgently. “I'll take a chance on that.”

He bent to pick up his map and stuffed it in his pocket, then folded up his tripod and shouldered it, strode briskly away.

Pat watched him until he reached the group of men gathered about the painted pole. Then he mounted and spurred his horse toward the Bar X ranch in search of John Boyd.

3

John Boyd was a tall, stringy man with drooping gray mustaches and piercing black eyes. His sixty-five years on the Western range had left him a little stooped and gnarled, but with a rawhide toughness of fiber that disputed the encroachment of advancing years.

Pat Stevens found him at the stables back of the Bar X ranch house wearing a leather blacksmith's apron and sulphurously fitting a shoe on the left hind foot of a blazed-face bay, one of Boyd's favorite saddle horses.

He glanced up at Pat and jerked out a “Howdy, neighbor,” then went on blankety-blanking the struggling horse while he firmly nailed the shoe into place.

Pat dismounted and squatted on the ground, rolling a cigarette and waiting until the rancher was through. It took Boyd only a few minutes, then he stepped back and let the bay get all four feet on the ground again, muttering profanely, “Le's see you throw
that
shoe, you blank son of a blank blank.” He pulled out a red bandanna and mopped his sweaty face, brushed his mustaches up with the back of his hand and spit a long stream of tobacco juice to the ground, then strolled around to squat beside Pat companionably. “Things're lookin' mighty good for this time of year,” he offered.

“Mighty good,” Pat agreed absently. “I believe my yearlings are carrying twenty pounds more on the average than I ever saw this time before.”

“Yep. Price is good, too. I've been thinkin' about getting a couple more bulls, Pat …”

“Did you ever think about farming your creek sections?” Pat asked harshly.

“Farming?” John Boyd snorted his aversion. “Here in Powder Valley? Have you gone plumb crazy, Pat? Why would any man farm good grass land? Hell! there's plenty of land out east of here on the flats if a man's got a yen to follow the tail-end of a team hooked to a plow.”

“That is what I always thought,” said Pat. He paused a moment, sucking on his cigarette. “If you think that way, why'd you sell your bottom sections to an outfit that plans on bringin' in farmers an' cuttin' it up into little tracts for nesters-like?”

“You're crazy!” Boyd ejaculated. He pushed back a floppy gray hat and stared at his neighbor in amazement. “I'd as soon see a gang of rustlers move into Powder Valley as a passel of plowmen.”

“I just came from down along the creek where there's a surveyor runnin' a fence-line along your bottom sections.”

Boyd frowned, then suddenly he slapped his lean thigh and began to laugh. “Don' know where you got that idee about farming. I did sell them three bottom sections to a hawse-raiser from Texas last winter. Feller by the name of Biloff. He's got an idee for crossin' Arabian studs with pure-bred Morgan mares for a heavier an' faster stock hawse. Sounded good to me, so I let him have them three sections cheap to get started on.”

“Hundred dollars a section?”

“Well, I didn't get that much. He claimed he was short of cash an' I figgered it was sort of a public dooty, maybe, to set up a place like that in Powder Valley. I sold him the three sections for two hundred dollars. He was a mighty slick talker, that man,” Boyd concluded reminiscently.

“Nineteen hundred and twenty acres for two hundred dollars,” Pat mused savagely. “At ten dollars an acre, that's nineteen thousand an' two hundred dollars if my figurin' is right. A clear profit of nineteen thousand for Mr. Biloff.”

“What're you talkin' about? Ten dollars an acre … nineteen thousand …” sputtered Boyd. “He promised me my pick of the first year's colt crop …”

“Sure,” said Pat sardonically. “He promised
me
that, too. For sellin' him
my
creek section.”

“Yours? You mean to say he bought more'n my three sections?”

“Not only mine,” Pat explained harshly, “but everybody's up an' down the creek on both sides. Gave each of us the same song an' dance, I reckon. Told each of us he only wanted
our
one or two or three sections facing the creek … I tell you, John, Biloff owns every foot of land on both sides of the creek all the way up an' down Powder Valley.”

“Good God'l'mighty!” exclaimed Boyd, not impiously. “He must be figgerin' on raisin' a heap of hawses.”

“Hawses hell!” snorted Pat. “We've been slickered. We held pat hands an' we threw 'em away in front of a pair of deuces. He lied straight out when he bought that land. Biloff ain't a hawse-raiser from Texas. He's the president of a big company that's fixing to dam up Powder Creek an' dig irrigation canals and sell off that land in little parcels to farmers from the East.”

“Do tell?” Boyd looked interested but not particularly worried. He shook his head and spit a neat stream of tobacco juice from between his mustaches. “He's crazy if he thinks that'll work. This is cow-country. No good for farmin'. Too high in the mountains. Early frost will catch any crop they try to plant.”

“That ain't the point,” Pat pounded at him. “The farmers that pay ten dollars an acre for that land don't know it's worthless. They'll flock in here and settle all over the bottoms.
Every foot of that creek will be fenced off from our ranches so our stock can't get to water
. With a dam at the upper end,
there won't be any runnin' water
except what the company wants to turn loose.”

Boyd shook his head in dazed incomprehension. “I tell you it won't never work,” he remonstrated feebly. “Farmers will starve out in a year or two when their crops get froze out.”

“
He
don't care whether they raise crops or not. Biloff will clean up a million dollars and leave the farmers holding the bag. While they're starving out, what'll we be doing? Our ranches will be ruined.”

“By gum, Pat, you reckon any man could be that mean?” John Boyd asked wonderingly. “Mean enough to get pore devils out here with their families to starve just to make a heap of money off 'em?”

“That's high finance,” said Pat sarcastically. “You an' me don't know nothin' about that.”

“I don't believe it, Pat. I cain't hardly believe such things'd be allowed. There orta be a law.”

“I figure,” said Pat Stevens quietly, “it's up to us in Powder Valley to see it don't happen here. If there ain't a law to touch a man like Biloff … it's time we made some of our own.”

A fanatical light began to gleam in John Boyd's black eyes. He nodded his old head slowly. He said solemnly, “I reckon I know one judge that we could appeal to.”

“What judge is that?”

“Judge Colt,” the old man proclaimed sonorously. “He's always handed down fair an' rightful decisions, Pat, out here in the West.” He got to his feet slowly. There was a far-seeing look in his eyes. “You say them surveyors are down on the Bar X right now?”

“I just came from there.” Pat came to his feet lithely. “We don't want to be too hasty, John. Those surveyors are just doin' the job they've been hired to do. Biloff is the man …”

“But Biloff ain't here,” John Boyd told him gently. He shook off Pat's restraining hand and stalked toward the back door of the ranch house.

Pat stared after the tall erect figure with a somber look of questioning in his gray eyes. There was going to be hell to pay in Powder Valley. Bloodshed and death were the inevitable components of a situation like this. Pat shrank from the terrible implications that confronted him. This was different from the days when he had carried his guns, loose-triggered, against outlaws and killers. In this case, it would be the innocent who would suffer and die. The farmers who came to the valley would be innocent and deluded victims of one man's greed. There would be women and children—