Holmes on the Range (32 page)

The rustling I'd heard had materialized into a large, whirling, panting shape that suddenly burst from the shadows. I had just enough time to recognize my brother in a life-or-death grapple with another man when the two of them crashed to the earth, kicking and cursing. Their spinning bodies rolled over the fire, smothering its meager flame and casting us all into utter blackness.

Or, A Fight in the Dark Sheds New Light on Our Case

U
nder normal circumstances, a
man of my considerable size doesn't need much time to end a fight. These weren't normal circumstances, however, since it's pretty hard to end a fight you can't
see
. For nearly a minute, Gustav and our surprise caller rolled this way and that while I followed by the sound of their grunts and muffled blows, unsure which head to hit or back to kick when I managed to catch a glimpse of them.

The men's tangled forms finally came to a stop pressed against the rocky outcropping beside which we'd bedded ourselves. One of them ended up beneath the other, and from the familiar sound of the yelps coming from the ground, I knew it was Old Red who'd been pinned.

But being on top proved to be no advantage to Gustav's attacker, for it gave me the opportunity to determine the exact location of his face and send a punch flying smack-dab into it. A loud groan was followed quickly by the dropped-potato-sack sound of a man collapsing to the earth.

“Thanks, Brother,” Gustav said, sounding winded and shaken as he pulled himself up.

“My pleasure. So who'd I just whack the bejesus out of, anyway?”

Old Red began dusting himself off and picking bramble from his hair. “I have no idea. I heard someone creepin' around, so I made like I had to let off a sprinkle and circled round behind him. He's got some good ears on him, though, cuz he heard me comin' and jumped me first.”

“Maybe it's one of the McPhersons,” I said, hoping I'd just belted Uly or Spider.

“Let's find out.”

Old Red pulled out a lucifer, fired it up, and moved the small flame down toward our prisoner. The light of it shimmered off a black, broad, and strangely familiar face.

“Well, I wouldn't have guessed that one,” Gustav said. “What the hell is
he
doin' here?”

“What the hell is
who
doin' here?”

I leaned in to give the Negro sprawled beneath us a closer look just as his eyes snapped open and his hands shot up to clamp around my neck. Gustav dropped his match and began struggling to break the powerful grip that was suddenly cutting off my breath.

“Jim!” Old Red said. “Stop! It's Old Red and Big Red! The Amlingmeyers! Stop it, Jim!
Stop!
”

The pressure around my windpipe eased.

“Old Red?”

The voice had a touch of Kentucky drawl, and I recognized it straight off: It was Jim Weller, the Negro puncher Uly had refused to hire in the Hornet's Nest more than two months before.

“Yup, it's me,” Gustav said. “And that's my brother you're stranglin'.”

“Hey. . .there. . .Jim,” I wheezed.

The hands at my throat disappeared, and shortly thereafter the
three of us were gathered around the rekindled campfire like a bunch of old chums. Weller had brought with him fresh, strong Arbuckle grounds and flavorful Durham tobacco, and by way of apology for trying to throttle Old Red and me, he treated us to the best java and smokes we'd had in months. From the enthusiastic reception this received, Weller guessed that life on the Bar VR had not been silk and velvet, and I was about to launch into our tale when Gustav got his lips working first.

“Oh, it ain't as bad as you might think,” he said. “The work's hard, the food stinks, and the foreman's a son of a bitch, but you could say the same of most outfits. So what brings you out our way?”

Weller stared into the fire. “I'm ridin' the grub line. Miles has been bone-dry job-wise, so I thought I'd try my luck over in Wibaux.”

If you're headin' to Wibaux, what're you doin' this far south?
I could've said. Or
I would've thought the grub line went
around
the VR these days, not through it
. But I held my tongue and let Old Red do the talking, for he seemed to be digging around for answers in his own way.

“Travelin' alone, are you?”

“Just me and my horse.”

“Oh?” Old Red replied. “Ain't that a bit risky—a man on the drift alone in these parts? It's not enough you got the McPhersons to worry about, but there's Hungry Bob on the prowl, as well.”

Weller chuckled. “Awww, Old Red—I thought you were a level-headed man. Yet here you are spreadin' around the heebie-jeebies like them gossipy hens back in Miles. All this talk about Bob Tracy's just a big bucket of nothin'. He's either up in Saskatchewan or down in hell by now.”

“I ain't so sure. I got a feelin' he's a lot closer than that.”

“Oh?” Weller's dismissive smile went weak at the knee. “And how'd you come by this feelin'?”

“For one thing, I picked up some tracks a week or so back. Looked like one feller on his own, afoot, livin' rough and lyin' low.”

Weller laughed with a little too much gusto. “Is that all? Hell, if I got spooked every time I came across bear sign, I'd sell my saddle and take up knittin'.”

“Gustav knows bear sign when he sees it—and this wasn't it,” I said, leaping in to defend my brother's honor. He thanked me for the support by ignoring me, as did Weller, who just kept right on laughing.

“For another thing,” Old Red continued, “there's you.”

Weller's laugh choked to a halt. “What do you mean?”

It was Gustav's turn to smile now, and he favored Weller with one of his sly little smirks. “I've been sittin' here tryin' to figure why you'd be skulkin' around the Bar VR given its less-than-hospitable reputation, and it occurred to me that all the bad talk about the VR might actually
attract
a certain kind of person. Or two kinds of persons, actually—a man on the run and a man on his heels. Tell me, Jim—what's the bounty on ol' Bob up to these days? I sure bet you could use the money.”

The expression on Weller's face seesawed between dismay and disgust before finally settling on the latter. He sighed and threw his cigarette in the fire, looking like a fellow who'd just had his bluff called on a fifty-dollar bet.

“One thousand dollars,” he said with sulky irritation. “And yeah—I
could
use the money.”

“Well, don't worry—we don't aim to horn in on you,” Old Red assured him. “We got our own business to attend to, and I just had to be sure you weren't mixed up in it.”

Weller was plainly relieved to hear this, though it didn't cheer me up any. I'd already done the arithmetic necessary to divide a thousand dollars into three shares, and the resulting figures had been tempting indeed.

“So what makes you think Bob's around here, anyway?” Gustav asked.

“It's pretty much like you said,” Weller replied, his tone still a tad
wary. “I turned bounty hunter when I couldn't hunt up a job. Headed down to Biddle cuz word was Hungry Bob had passed through there a few weeks back. I managed to find an old mule skinner who'd spoken to him—or someone like him—in a roadhouse. Said this feller was
very
interested when he heard about the Bar VR—its size and its reputation for unfriendliness in particular. And that got me thinkin' the VR'd be the perfect place to hole up, cuz most fellers like me would be too scared to set foot there.”

“So you came up here and got to trackin'.”

“That's right.”

“And?”

“No sign of Hungry Bob—though I was sure I'd finally caught up to him when I saw your fire here.” Weller grinned. “And I stumbled across something other than you two fellers, as well.”

“The cattalo,” Old Red said.

“You seen ‘em, too?”

“Not just seen ‘em—Otto here almost got himself pulped by 'em.”

Weller laughed, and it was such an infectious sound I had to join in even if the merriment was at my expense.

“So them hairy things back there was cattalo?” I said, pleased that I'd finally laid eyes on the rare critters.

Cattalo is hybrid stock, a cross between cattle and buffalo. Breeding them had been quite the craze out West—until folks figured out what a stupid thing it is to do. The buffalo blood gives you big, meaty offspring that can withstand winter cold better than any steer. But it also gives you unsightly, unpredictable brutes that are as foul-tempered as your average cow is dull-witted. On top of that, cattalo calves take a harsh toll upon their mothers, their buffalo humps presenting challenges of delivery cow anatomy is not designed to overcome.

If raising cattalo was just plain dangerous—which it is—no one would bat an eye. But so many of the calves and mothers die in labor it makes the whole business unprofitable, which is why cattalo ranching
came and went in the blink of an eye. Exactly why a herd of the misbe-gotten creatures should be lingering around the Cantlemere was but one more mystery to throw atop the heap we'd already built up.

“Well, them big bastards sure lived up to their reputation for bein' ugly and mean. I can see why Uly'd have a soft spot for ‘em, him bein' ugly and . . .”

A thought slammed into my gut like a fist, knocking the air out of me. I stood, walked around the fire, and bent over, my butt cheeks pointed at my brother.

“Kick me in the ass,” I told him.

“
What?
”

“You heard me. Kick me in the ass. Believe me, I deserve it.”

“Oh, stop actin' like a fool, Otto. Just tell me what you're talkin' about.”

“Alright, you had your chance,” I said, reaching into my Levi's and pulling out the scrap of paper I had tucked away there. I gave Weller as quick a rundown on the receipt as I could—how it went from the cellar to Boudreaux's pocket to the fireplace to our hands—then read it out loud.

ill of Sal

nnuery 20, 1893

tallo

00—payed

cfersin

klin Dammers

“Why would McPherson be buyin' tallow from Frankie Dammers?” Weller asked when I was done. “You got all the beef fat you could want right here on the VR.”

“That's just what we've been thinkin',” I said. “Except I was readin' this wrong. It's
t-a-l-l-o
on here, not
t-a-l-l-o-w
, like it oughta be. I figured Dammers couldn't spell—he sure as hell didn't know how to write
January
or
paid
or even
McPherson
. But
tallo
ain't just misspelled. It's a
different word entirely—only the first few letters got burned off in the fire. What we've got here is a receipt for—”

Gustav might not know his way around the alphabet, but he figured out where I was headed quick enough.

“Cattalo.”

Weller chuckled and shook his head. “You sure you don't wanna kick his ass?” he said to Old Red.

“Later,” my brother mumbled, his thoughts focusing elsewhere. “Lady Clara said the VR was her father's ‘last grand gamble.' I reckon that's what he's rollin' the dice on—hybrid stock.”

“Who'd be dumb enough to put any money in cattalo anymore?” Weller asked.

“It ain't a matter of bein' dumb,” Old Red said. “It's a matter of bein' a thousand miles away. Them folks in England only had one way of knowin' what was goin' on out here.”

“Perkins,” I said.

Gustav nodded. “He was probably sendin' the board one letter after another sayin' the ranch is fit to bust with big, beefy cattalo—only they had to keep it quiet so as not to tip off the competition, or some such nonsense.”

“Meanwhile, Perkins and the McPhersons was milkin' the VR for every penny it was worth,” I threw out.

“Could be. But don't forget—the Duke and them others have been goin' over the books ever since they got here.”

For once, I was a step ahead of my brother.

“Oh, pshaw. That's easy enough to fake. You just do two sets of account books—a real one for yourself and one that's doctored-up for everybody else. Hey! That'd explain all those empty ink bottles we found in Perkins's office the night we snuck in there! And I bet that's why the bill of sale for them cattalo was in the cellar. Perkins hid the VR's
real
records down there. After Boo popped up with the receipt, the
McPhersons put a bullet in his brain and moved the ledger books to a better hidin' place.”

Old Red gaped at me a moment before a small smile curled his mustache at the edges.

“That's some fine deducifyin', Brother.”

I grinned back. “Well. . .I
was
a clerk for a spell.”