Riding for the Brand (Ss) (1986) (18 page)

His six-gun, which had been thrown from his holster when he fell, also lay up there on the grass. It was not over twenty feet from the rim of the crevice, and once it was in his hand, it would be a simple thing to knock off that steer. Getting the pistol was quite another thing. With that steer on the prod, it would be suicide to try.

When he reached the bottom of the crevice he peered around in the vague light. At noon, or close to that, it would be bright down here, but at any other time it would be thick with shadows.

Kneeling by the thin trickle of water, the Kid drank his fill. Lifting his face from the water, he looked downstream and almost jumped out of his skin when he saw a grinning skull.

The Sandy Kid was no pilgrim. He had fought Apaches and Comanches, and twice he had been over the trail to Dodge. But seeing a skull grinning at him from a distance of only a few feet did nothing to make him feel comfortable and at ease.

"By grab, looks like I ain't the first to tumble into this place"... He said. "That hombre must have broken a leg and starved to death."

Yet when he walked over and examined the skeleton, he could see he was wrong. The man had been shot through the head.

Gingerly, the Kid moved the skull. There was a hole on the other side, too, and a bullet flattened against the rock.

He was astonished.

"Well, now! Somebody shot this hombre while he laid here"... The Kid decided.

I Squatting on his haunches, the Sandy Kid j puffed his cigarette and studied the situation.

,bar Long experience in reading sign had made it easy for his eyes to see what should be seen. A few things he noticed now. This man already wounded, had fallen or been pushed into the crack, and then a man with a gun had leaned II over the edge above and shot him through the bar head!

There was a notch in his belt that must have been cut by a bullet, and one knee had been broken by a bullet, for the slug was still there, embedded in the joint.

The Kid was guessing about the notch, but from the look of things and the way the man was doubled up, it looked like he had been hurt pretty bad aside from the knee.

The shirt was gone except for a few shreds, and among the rocky debris there were a few buttons, an old pocketknife, and some coins.

The boots, dried and stiff, were not a horseman's boots, but the high-topped, flat-heeled type that miners wear. A rusted six-shooter lay a bit further downstream, and the Kid retrieved it. After a few minutes he determined that the gun was still fully loaded.

"Prob'ly never got a shot at the skunk"... The Sandy Kid said thoughtfully. "Well, now! Ain't this a purty mess?"

When he studied the skeleton further, he noticed something under the ribs that he had passed over, thinking it a rock. Now he saw it was a small leather sack which the dead man had evidently carried inside his shirt. The leather was dry and stiff, and it ripped when he tried to open it. Within were several fragments of the same ore the Kid had himself found!

Tucking the samples and the remnants of the sack under a rocky ledge, the Kid stuck the rusty six-shooter in his belt and climbed back to the ledge, where a cautious look showed that the ladino was gone.

The roan pricked up its ears and whinnied, not at all astonished that this peculiar master of his should come crawling out of the ground. The Kid had lost his rope, which was probably still trailing from the steer's horns, but he was not thinking of that. He was thinking of the murdered man.

When he awakened the next morning he rolled over on his side and stared around the bunkhouse.

Everyone was still asleep, and then he realized that it was Sunday.

Wald was nowhere around when the Kid headed for the cookshack. Smoke was rising slowly, for Cholly Cooper, the best cook on that range, was conscientious. When you wanted breakfast you got it, early or late. The Sandy Kid was glad that Wald was not around, for he had no love for his morose, quick-to-anger boss.

It was not a pleasant outfit to ride for, Cooper being the only friendly one in the bunch. Jasper Wald never spoke, except to give an order or to criticize in a dry, sarcastic voice. He was about forty, tough and hard-bitten. Rumor had it that he had killed more than one man. His two permanent hands were Jack Swarr, a burly Kansas man, always unshaven, and Dutch Schweitzer, a lean German who drank heavily.

"Hi, Sandy."... Cholly waved a fork at him.

"Set yoreself down and I'll get some coffee. Up early, ain't you?"

"Uh-huh."... The Kid pulled the thick cup toward him. "Sort of reckoned I'd ride up to the Forks. Few things I need. Shirts and stuff."

Cholly dished out a couple of thick slabs of beef and four eggs. "Better eat"... He said. "I wouldn't want yuh pourin' them shirts onto an empty stomach."

While Cholly refilled the Kid's cup, he said in a low voice, "What did you all do to the boss?

He was shore riled up when he came in and saw yuh hadn't showed up with the rest of the hands."

"Reckon he was just sore. I tied in with an old mossyhorn up in the breaks and lost my rope.

Durned steer had one horn, looked long enough for two steers, and a stub on the other end."

Cooper chuckled. "You ain't the first who lost a rope on OF Stob! You were lucky not to get killed."

"Rough country, over thataway"... The Sandy Kid suggested. "Ever been over there?"

"No further'n the creek, and I don't aim to.

Only one man ever knowed that country, unless it was the Apaches, and that was Jim Kurland.

He always claimed there was gold over there, but most folks just laughed at him."

"Rancher?"

"No, sort of a prospector. He mined some, I guess afore he came here. Dead now, I reckon.

He headed off into that country about a year ago and nobody ever saw hide nor hair of him again.

His wife, she died about three, four months ago, and his daughter works down to Wright's Store.

She handles the post office in there, mostly."

Jim Kurland. It was a name to remember. The Sandy Kid knew he was walking on dangerous ground. The killer of Kurland, if it was his skeleton the Kid had found, was probably still around, and any mention of Kurland's name might lead to trouble. It would be wise to proceed with caution.

The Sandy Kid was no hero. He had never toted a badge, and like most cowhands of his day, he looked upon the law as a nuisance originated mainly to keep riders from having a good time.

He went his own way, and if someone made trouble for him, he figured to handle it himself.

He would be ashamed to ask for help and figured all sheriffs were the same.

He was interested in gold. If there was a mine as rich as that ore seemed to indicate, he wanted it. Why, with a little gold a man could buy a spread of his own and stock it with those new whiteface cattle that carried so much more beef than a longhorn. A man could do right well with a little money to go on. ...

When he rode into the Forks he headed right for the store. He was not planning on doing any drinking this day. It was Sunday, but Sim Wright kept his store open seven days a week the year "round. The Sandy Kid, who was a lean six feet andwitha shock of sandy hair and mild gray eyes, swung down from the roan and crossed the boardwalk to the store.

At first he thought it was empty. Then he saw the girl who stood behind the counter, her eyes on him.

He jerked his hat from his head and went toward her. "Ma'am"... He said, "I better get me a "r couple of shirts. Yuh got anything with checks in it?"

"Big checks?" She smiled at him.

"Uh-huh, that's right."

She shoved him the shirts, one of them with black and white checks as big as those on a checkerboard.

He fingered them thoughtfully. Then he said, "Ma'am, is yore name Kurland?"

"That's my last name. My first name is Betty."

"Mine's Sandy"... He told her. "They call me the Sandy Kid."

He hesitated and then slid a hand into his pocket and took out the pocketknife and laid it on the shirts.

Her face went white as she caught it up. She looked at the Kid. "Where did you get this?"

Slowly, carefully, he told her. As he talked, she stared at him with wide eyes. "You think"... She asked when he had finished, "that he was murdered?

But why?"

"He had gold samples, ma'am. Folks will do a powerful lot for gold. I would, myself. I sort of figured I'd keep quiet about this, and sort of hunt that claim myself, and when I found it, I'd stake her out. Then I heard about you, an"

I figgered yuh'd like to know about yore pappy and have him buried proper."

"Who killed him?"

"That I don't know. I reckon if a body was to try, he could find out, but you'd have to keep still about findin' him for a while."

"If I keep still, will you find the murderer? If you do, I'll give you that claim."

"No, ma'am, I couldn't take yore claim.

Menfolks in my family wasn't raised no such way. But I don't have a particle of use for a coyote that would murder a man like that, so if yuh want, I'll have a look around in my spare time."

Her eyes were large and dark. It was nice looking into them. The Sandy Kid reckoned he had never looked into eyes that were like hers.

And her lips she had right nice lips. Not too full and not thin, either. He liked that. Her neck was sure white She was smiling at him, amused.

He flushed a deep red. "Reckon yuh must think I never saw a girl before"... He said.

"Well, I reckon mebbe I never did really look at one.

Somehow, they never sort of called themselves to mind."

"Thank you, Sandy."

All the way back to the ranch he was thinking how nice that name sounded from her lips.

The Bar W lay like an ugly sore in the bottom of the flat. There were three adjoining pole corrals, an unpainted frame bunkhouse, and a ranch house of adobe. The cookshack was also adobe, and there was smoke coming from the chimney when he rode in with his shirts.

It was still quite early, for the ranch was only a short piece from town. He unsaddled the roan and walked back toward the cookshack for coffee. They were all there. Nobody said anything when he came in, but Cholly threw him a warning glance. The Kid got a cup and filled it with coffee. Then he sat down.

"What happened to yuh last night?" Wald demanded glaring at him across the table.

"Me? I had me a run-in with that Old Stob horned ladino. Lost my rope."

"You still got that rock?"

"That?" The Sandy Kid shrugged carelessly.

"No. I throwed it away. Reckon it was just iron pyrites or somethin'."

Nothing more was said, but he felt uncomfortable.

He had found Jasper Wald an unpleasant man to work for, and the sooner he got himself another job the better off he would be. There was something in Wald's baleful glance that disturbed him.

"In the mornin'"... Wald said after a few minutes, "you work that Thumb Butte country."

The Kid nodded, but made no comment. The Thumb Butte area was six miles across the valley from the badlands where he'd had the run-in with Old Stob, that red-eyed mossyhorn. Was it accident or design that had caused Wald to send him to the other side of the ranch?

Yet the next day he realized that his new working ground had advantages of its own. He worked hard all morning and rounded up and turned into a mountain corral forty head of cattle that he had combed out of the pifions.

Switching his saddle to a bay pony, he took off into the draws that led south and west, away from the ranch. An hour's riding brought him to the Argo trail, and he cantered along to the little town at Argo Springs. Here was the only land office within two hundred miles or more where a mining claim could be registered.

A quick check of the books, offered him by an obliging justice of the peace who also served in five or six other capacities, showed him that no mining claim had been located in the vicinity of the badlands. Hence, if the killer of Jim Kurland had found the claim, he was working it on the sly.

He did some further checking, but the discovery he made was by accident. It came out of a blue sky when Pete Mallinger, at the Wells Fargo office, noticed his brand.

"Bar W, eh? You bring one of them boxes over here? The ones Wald's been shippin' to El Paso?"

"Me? No, I just rode over to get myself some smokin'."... He grinned confidentially. "The boss doesn't even know I'm gone."

"I wouldn't let him ketch yuh. He's a tough one, that Jasper Wald is. Throw a gun on a man soon's look at him. Got money, too, he has. He's buyin' up most of that Agua Dulce Canyon country."

The Sandy Kid rolled a smoke and listened, his eyes sweeping the narrow street with its hitching rails and clapboarded buildings. Jasper Wald was not making enough on the Bar W to buy any land, not even with all his free-and-easy branding operations. Nothing you could really rp complain about, but nevertheless the Bar W brand was showing up on almost everything on the range that came within sight of a Bar W hand.

Before he left, the Kid managed to get his hands on the address in El Paso. The boxes were being shipped to Henry Wald, a brother of Jasper, and they were notably heavy.