Riding for the Brand (Ss) (1986) (14 page)

She was silent again, looking down at the table.

At last she spoke, her voice barely audible.

"It it's worth doing."

"It will be."... He looked at his unlighted cigar.

"You'll be going to settle Tom's property.

When you come back, if you want to, you might stop off again. If you do, I'll be waiting to see you."

She looked at him, seeing beyond the coldness, seeing the man her brother must have known. "I think I shall. I think I'll stop when I come back."

Out in the street a man was raking dust over the blood. Back of the old barn a hen cackled, and somewhere a pump started to complain rustily, drawing clear water from a deep, cold well.

*

Author's Note"

James B. Gillett was a Texas Ranger from to 1881.

In his book Six Years With the Texas Rangers he says that a ranger could "keep a constant stream of fire pouring from his carbine when his horse is going at top speed and hit his mark nine times out of ten."

Speaking later of the Horrell faction, who figured in the Horrell-Higgins feud, he says: "having grown up with firearms in their hands, they were quick as lighting with either Winchester or pistol."

Later, speaking of the ranger company of which he was a member, with Lieutenant Reynold in command, he says: "Nearly every member of the company had more or less experience as an officer and all were exceedingly fine marksmen."

In the years 1889-90, the Texas Rangers, according to Gillette, arrested 579 persons, among them 76 murderers.

Gillette's book is one of the best on the Texas Rangers, not a history of the force but a good account of his service with them.

*

The Turkey feather Riders.

Jim Sandifer swung down from his buckskin and stood for a long minute staring across the saddle toward the dark bulk of Bearwallow Mountain.

His was the grave, careful look of a man accustomed to his own company under the sun and in the face of the wind. For three years he had been riding for the B Bar, and for two of those years he had been ranch foreman. What he was about to do would bring an end to that, an end to the job, to the life here, to his chance to win the girl he loved.

Voices sounded inside, the low rumble of Gray Bowen's bass and the quick, light voice of his daughter, Elaine. The sound of her voice sent a quick spasm of pain across Sandifer's face. Tying the buckskin to the hitch rail, he ducked under it and walked up the steps, his boots sounding loud on the planed boards, his spurs tinkling lightly.

The sound of his steps brought instant stillness to the group inside and then the quick tattoo of Elaine's feet as she hurried to meet him.

It was a sound he would never tire of hearing, a sound that had brought gladness to him such as he had never known before. Yet when her eyes met his at the door her flashing smile faded.

"Jim! What's wrong?" Then she noticed the blood on his shoulder and the tear where the bullet had ripped his shirt, and her face went white to the lips. "You're hurt!"

"No only a scratch."... He put aside her detaining hand. "Wait. I'll talk to your dad first."

His hands dropped to hers, and as she looked up, startled at his touch, he said gravely and sincerely, "No matter what happens now, I want you to know that I've loved you since the day we met. I've thought of little else, believe that."... He dropped her hands then and stepped past her into the huge room where Gray Bowen waited, his big body relaxed in a homemade chair of cowhide.

Rose Martin was there, too, and her tall, handsome son, Lee. Jim's eyes avoided them for he knew what their faces were like; he knew the quiet serenity of Rose Martin's face, masking a cunning as cold and calculating as her son's flaming temper. It was these two who were destroying the B Bar, they who had brought the big ranch to the verge of a deadly range war by their conniving. A war that could have begun this morning, but for him.

Even as he began to speak he knew his words would put him right where they wanted him, that when he had finished, he would be through here, and Gray Bowen and his daughter would be left unguarded to the machinations of this woman and her son. Yet he could no longer refrain from speaking. The lives of men depended on it.

Bowen's lips thinned when he saw the blood.

"You've seen Katrishen? Had a run-in with him?"

"No"... Sandifer's eyes blazed. "There's no harm in Katrishen if he's left alone.

No trouble unless we make it. I ask you to recall. Gray, that for two years we've lived at peace with the Katrishens. We have had no trouble until the last three months."... He paused, hoping the idea would soak in that trouble had begun with the coming of the Martins. "He won't give us any trouble if we leave him alone!"

"Leave him alone to steal our range"... Lee Martin flared.

Sandifer's eyes swung.

"Our range? Are you now a partner in the B Bar?"

Lee smiled, covering his slip. "Naturally, as I am a friend of Mr. Bowen's, I think of his interests as mine."

Bowen waved an impatient hand. "That's no matter! What happened?"

Here it was, then. The end of all his dreaming, his planning, his hoping. "It wasn't Katrishen.

It was Klee Mont."

"Who?"

Bowen came out of his chair with a lunge, veins swelling. "Mont shot you?

What for?

Why, in heavens' name?"

"Mont was over there with the Mello boys and Art Dunn. He had gone over to run the Katrishens off their Iron Creek holdings. If they had tried that, they would have started a firstclass range war with no holds barred. I stopped them."

Rose Martin flopped her knitting in her lap and glanced up at him, smiling smugly. Lee began to roll a smoke, one eyebrow lifted. This was what they had wanted, for he alone had blocked them here. The others the Martins could influence, but not Jim Sandifer.

Bowen's eyes glittered with his anger. He was a choleric man, given to sudden bursts of fury, a man who hated being thwarted and who was impatient of all restraint.

"You stopped them? Did they tell you whose orders took them over there? Did they?"

"They did. I told them to hold off until I could talk with you, but Mont refused to listen. He said his orders had been given him and he would follow them to the letter."

"He did right"... Bowen's voice boomed in the big room. "Exactly right! And you stopped them?

You countermanded my orders?"

"I did."... Sandifer laid it flatly on the line.

"I told them there would be no burning or killing while I was foreman. I told them they weren't going to run us into a range war for nothing."

Gray Bowen balled his big hands into fists.

"You've got a gall, Jim! You know better than to countermand an order of mine! And you'll leave me to decide what range I need! Katrishen's got no business on Iron Creek, an' I told him so! I told him to get off an' get out! As for this range war talk, that's foolishness! He won't fight!"

"Putting them off would be a very simple matter"... Lee Martin interposed quietly. "If you hadn't interfered, Sandifer, they would be off now and the whole matter settled."

"Settled nothin'"... Jim exploded. "Where did you get this idea that Bill Katrishen could be pushed around? The man was an officer in the Army during the war, an' he's fought Indians on the plains."

"You must be a great friend of his"... Rose Martin said gently. "You know so much about him."

The suggestion was there, and Gray Bowen got it. He stopped in his pacing, and his face was like a rock. "You been talkin' with Katrishen?

You sidin' that outfit?"

"This is my outfit. I ride for the brand,"

Sandifer replied. "I know Katrishen, of course.

I've talked to him."

"And to his daughter?" Lee suggested, his eyes bright with malice. "With his pretty daughter?"

Out of the tail of his eye Jim saw Elaine's head come up quickly, but he ignored Lee's comment.

"Stop and think"... He said to Bowen. "When did this trouble start? When Mrs. Martin and her son came here! You got along fine with Katrishen until then! They've been putting you up to this!"

Bowen's eyes narrowed. "That will be enough of that"... He said sharply. He was really furious now, not the flaring, hot fury that Jim knew so well, but a cold, hard anger that nothing could touch. For the first time Jim realized how futile any argument was going to be.

Rose Martin and her son had insinuated themselves too much and too well into the picture of Gray Bowen's life.

"You wanted my report"... Sandifer said quietly.

"Mont wouldn't listen to my arguments for time.

He said he had his orders and would take none from me. I told him then that if he rode forward it was against my gun. He laughed at me, then reached for his gun. I shot him."

Gray Bowen's widened eyes expressed his amazement.

"You shot Mont?

You beat him to the draw?"

"That's right. I didn't want to kill him, but I shot the gun out of his hand and held my gun on him for a minute to let him know what it meant to be close to death. Then I started them back here."

Bowen's anger was momentarily swallowed by his astonishment. He recalled suddenly that in the three years Sandifer had worked for him there had been no occasion for him to draw a gun in anger. There had been a few brushes with Apaches and one with rustlers, but all rifle work.

Klee Mont was a killer with seven known killings on his record and had been reputed to be the fastest gunhand west of the Rio Grande.

"It seems peculiar"... Mrs. Martin said composedly, "for you to turn your gun on men who ride for Mr. Bowen, taking sides against him. No doubt you meant well, but it does seem strange."

"Not if you know the Katrishens"... Jim replied grimly. "Bill was assured he could settle on that Iron Creek holding before he moved in. He was told that we made no claim on anything beyond Willow and Gilita creeks."

"Who"... Lee insinuated, "assured him of that?"

"I did"... Jim said coolly. "Since I've been foreman, we've never run any cattle beyond that boundary. Iron Mesa is a block that cuts us off from the country south of there, and the range to the east is much better and is open for us clear to Beaver Creek and south to the Middle Fork."

"So you decide what range will be used? I think for a hired hand you take a good deal of authority.

Personally, I'm wondering how much your loyalty is divided. Or if it is divided. It seems to me you act more as a friend of the Katrishens or their daughter."

Sandifer took a step forward. "Martin"... He said evenly, "are you aimin' to say that I'd double cross the boss? If you are, you're a liar!"

Bowen looked up, a chill light in his eyes that Sandifer had never seen there before. "That will be all, Jim. You better go."

Sandifer turned on his heel and strode outside.

When Sandifer walked into the bunkhouse, the men were already back. The room was silent, but he was aware of the hatred in the cold, blue eyes of Mont as he lay sprawled in his bunk.

His right hand and wrist were bandaged. The Mello boys snored in their bunks, while Art Dunn idly shuffled cards at the table. These were the new hands, hired since the coming of the Martins.

Only three of the older hands were in, and none of them spoke.

"Hello lucky."... Mont rolled up on his elbow.

"Lose your lob?"

"Not yet"... Jim said shortly, aware that his remark brought a fleeting anger to Mont's eyes.

"You will"... Mont assured him. "If you are in the country when this hand gets well, I'll kill you!"

Jim Sandifer laughed shortly. He was aware that the older hands were listening, although none would have guessed it without knowing them.

"You called me lucky, Klee. It was you who were lucky in that I didn't figure on killin' you.

That was no miss. I aimed for your gunhand.

Furthermore, don't try pullin' a gun on me again. You're too slow."

"Slow?"

Mont's face flamed. He reared up in his bunk. "Slow? Why, you two-handed bluffer!"

Sandifer shrugged. "Look at your hand"... He said calmly. "If you don't know what happened, I do. That bullet didn't cut your thumb off. It doesn't go up your hand or arm; the wound runs across your hand."

They all knew what he meant. Sandifer's bullet must have hit his hand as he was in the act of drawing and before the gun came level, indicating that Sandifer had beaten Mont to the draw by a safe margin. That Klee Mont realized the implication was plain, for his face darkened and then paled around the lips. There was pure hatred in his eyes when he looked up at Sandifer.

"I'll kill you"... He said viciously. "I'll kill you!"

As Sandifer started outside. Rep Dean followed him. With Grimes and Sparkman, he was one of the older hands.

"What's come over this place, Jim? Six months ago there wasn't a better spread in the country."