Savage Range (11 page)

Immediately, as if all hell had let loose, a dozen rifles exploded into the night. From their flashes, Jim saw they had formed a rough circle and surrounded the Excelsior. The lights in the house were immediately extinguished, and afterward the first flames of fire began to lick up at the big barn.

Bonsell, squatted against the wall of a second-story room in which five bedrolls were stretched on the floor, looked up at the sound of that first shot. He held a knife in his hand with which he was picking splinters out of his leg by the aid of the lantern on the floor. He looked up at the four men, who were seated on the blankets watching him.

Without a word, he reached over and extinguished the lamp and said, “By God, they're back.”

Lunging to his feet, he rapped out orders. “Spread out over the top floor. Ed and me will take the east side. Morg, you and Dutch take the west. And Dutch, you'll have to fight out the south end window, too.”

There was a hurried tramping of feet as the men lunged for their rifles stacked in the corner. Bonsell, rifle in hand, plunged out the door into the long hall and came out in the north room. Already the window had been broken on the east side. To Ed, following him, he said, “Get over to that west window and fire at the gun flashes!”

He stood just beside the window now, looking out. They had already fired the big barn, and the smaller outbuildings were catching. It wasn't at this he was looking. He was counting the gun flashes. When he had spotted all within range, he went over to Ed's window and counted those, too, then called through the hall to Dutch to count the ones he could see between the ridge and the well house.

When he got the tally, he stood there, his face dark with fury, shaded softly by the glare of the fire coming through the gaping window. Thirteen men! That was too many for five men to fight, he thought.

Without a word, he started shooting at the gun flashes. His aim was careless. All he wanted to do was expend shells. When he had shot fifty times, he called across the room to Ed.

“Got any shells, Ed?”

“No.”

“Go get some.”

“What about my place here?”

“I'll take your side. It's so light on this side they're afraid to show.”

Ed tramped out of the room. Bonsell glanced once at the burning barn and the outbuildings. The flames had turned night into day, until he could see the whole surrounding countryside. Then he crossed swiftly to the west window. The ridge behind the house was lighted so brightly that he could see every branch of every tree. Only the shadow of the house, mounting part way up the hill, was black and secret. A man looking down at the house from the ridge could see nothing, since the glare would be in his eyes.

He dropped his rifle, stepped out onto the gallery, climbed the railing, then swung down, hanging by his finger tips to the gallery porch.

Presently, when he had stopped swinging, he dropped. He lit as lightly as a cat and rolled over in the grass against the wall. Nobody had so much as shot at him.

In a moment he heard Ed's voice calling softly from above, “Max! Max! Where are you?”

The fools! he thought. They'd stick in that house wondering where he'd gone until Cruver and his crew set fire to it. Then they'd all be trapped like rats. He'd had one taste of that tonight, and he didn't want more. If only those four fools would put up a good fight, giving him time for what he wanted to do!

He lay there listening to the fury of gunfire all around him. Ed had gone back to his shooting. The fire was slowly dying, letting night creep in again.

When the light had dimmed enough so that the ridge was just a black blur again, Bonsell moved. He crawled through the grass until he had achieved a tree. Then, dodging from one tree to the next, he made his way up the hill, aiming at a place between two riflemen.

Once above them, he took out his six-gun and made his way straight to one of the squatters. In the darkness, no one could recognize him.

He came up behind the squatter and said, “Where are the horses?”

“Over the second ridge west. What the hell do you—”

Bonsell shot. The man simply folded in on himself and dropped his head. After that, Bonsell made his way back to the horses, the concert of gunfire gradually diminishing in volume as he walked.

He found the horses in an arroyo. The fools hadn't bothered to leave a guard with them. He led one horse aside, then took out his knife and methodically cut the cinches of every saddle.

Finished, he mounted and rode west, toward the hills. Not once did he think of those four in the house. They would serve their purpose, he hoped, if they contrived to stave off the burning of the house till daylight, giving him time to act.

Less than half an hour later, he met the rest of the crew pounding up the trail headed for the Excelsior. They pulled up around him as he waited. He didn't know whether or not they'd seen the flames from the burning buildings; he didn't care.

“We're ridin' out now!” he said harshly.

“They raid the place again?” someone asked.

“Yes. They caught the five of us. Put a knife in Blackie and sneaked upstairs. They got the rest of the boys. I made a dive out onto the gallery and jumped.” He spoke in a casual voice that lent itself well to his mock heroics. “I got to their horses,” he continued, “and cut the cinches. They're there for a while.”

“Then let's go get 'em!” a man said.

“You'll do what I tell you!” Bonsell said coldly. “They can fort up on a ridge, mend the cinches, then turn around and chase us when they're done. We won't get anywhere that way.”

“What do you aim to do, Max?” MaCumber asked.

“Strike!” Bonsell said sharply. “Split up into four bunches, and ride to the spreads we missed the other time. There's no one there now. I want you to burn their places first. After that, gather their cattle. They've pushed their beef close to the buildings already. I want you to drive that beef west, converging at Mimbres canyon. That's central to every spread left. Haze the stuff hard. If any of it lags, shoot it! I want every walking head of beef you find pushed to the Mimbres rim by noon. Do you get it? Then ride!”

Bonsell waited long enough to divide the men, then, heading one group himself, he set out for Boyd's place. They rode like fury, and reached it just at daylight. It was deserted. Boyd had pushed all his herds into the big horse pasture, and they were packed in like matches in a box, bawling their lungs out to be turned loose. As soon as the barns were fired, Bonsell directed the pasture gate to be opened, and as the hungry longhorns boiled out, his men skillfully directed them up the valley toward Mimbres.

It was a savage drive. The cattle were hungry and wanted to graze, but they were not allowed to. The stubborn ones were shot, and at the smell of their blood, the others became restive and wild. Bonsell tried every way he knew to start a stampede, and finally, when he killed a calf and dragged it past the flank, he succeeded.

It worked perfectly. There was no place for the cattle to stampede except up the valley. With two men on swing, keeping them bunched, there was nothing to do but ride. Other small herds were picked up on the way, and when these threatened to stop the stampede, Bonsell shot them. By midmorning the cattle had run themselves out, but the Excelsior hands harried them frantic. There was no lagging. The whole valley floor for miles was strewn with their warm carcasses. A little after eleven they approached the Mimbres rim.

Eons ago, a strong spring had started to gouge this valley out. Today it was a canyon two hundred feet deep, quite wide, with a grassy floor. Its sides were sheer dark sandstone, eroded first by water and later by wind. On its far rim, Bonsell could see two big bunches of cattle that his men had already gathered in. Letting his own big herd rest, he dispatched a messenger to the men across on the opposite rim. By one o'clock the last and fourth herd, huge and unwieldy, was pushed up to join his. The cattle were so tired they almost dropped in their tracks, and bedded down thankfully a half mile from the rim.

Bonsell drew his men off out of sight and let the milling herd quiet. The men smoked in silence, ears cocked for any sounds of pursuit. But the guards, stationed at high points of land, signaled everything was quiet.

Presently, Bonsell rose and said, “String out in a line. Anything that doesn't move, kill it. The signal to begin is a shot from me.”

They mounted and, still out of sight of the tired cattle, strung out in a long line. When they were ready, Bonsell raised his gun and fired.

With a long Comanche yell, guns booming, the crew poured down onto the resting cattle. Harried, tense, nervous from too much running, it took little to startle the herd. The cattle took one look at these men pouring toward them, then heaved to their feet and started off in the opposite direction—which was straight for the Mimbres rim.

By the time the lead steers were approaching the rim and, sensing the danger, were trying to veer off to the south, the whole herd had got under way. Nothing could turn it, for blind panic guided its ponderous pushing.

In one thundering, bawling mass of moving backs, a mighty brindle sea flooded over the rim, stepping off into space and slowly arcing out to drop. Those in the rear pushed so hard that the ones in front were helpless. It flowed on and on, slow and majestic, to the rim, then continued in an unbroken line to drop thunderously to the canyon floor below.

Max Bonsell stood aside and watched it, his only thought being what a pity it was to destroy so much money. His glance at the opposite rim showed him that the two herds opposite were meeting a similar fate. His own signal to start the stampede had been the signal for them, also.

The last dozen steers in the drag refused to go over and had to be shot. Once it was done, the Excelsior crew dismounted and looked down at their handiwork. It was an awesome sight, so terrible a piece of destruction that it defied discussion. Already, the scavenger buzzards were collecting, wheeling overhead in motionless, hungry circles, probably wondering if their eyes deceived them.

The crew joined at the canyon bottom a mile to the south. Max Bonsell allowed himself a meager smile of satisfaction when he thought of it.

“Back to your camp, boys,” he announced. “This will make Cruver's bunch so salty we'll be busy—or it'll take the heart right out of 'em.”

Chapter Ten:
QUIET
—
AND DEADLY

Mary Buckner, for decorum's sake, had registered at the Exchange House the night she arrived. After catching up with her sleep at Cope's quarters, she went back to her room. The hardest part of her duty from now on would be the waiting. But for the first time since Uncle Jack Cope, roused to an injustice that strangled him with rage, planned to some day win back the Ulibarri grant for her, she was at peace. Perhaps it was Uncle Jack's confidence that at last he had found the man for the job, or maybe it was just Jim Wade's quiet way that gave her confidence. Anyway, she had it and she was happy.

When she thought of Jim Wade's breaking Ben Beauchamp out of jail, she shuddered a little with fright. She was glad that nobody had told her he planned it, and now that it was over she felt a little faint when she thought of what might have happened. But in a few words, Uncle Jack had made her see why it was necessary.

Still, there was so little she could do. Nobody in this town knew her. Only a handful could remember her, and she could remember none of them, except Jack Cope. But when Jim Wade rode out of San Jon he had left certain instructions with her, instructions as elaborate as they were preposterous. She determined, however, that she would carry them out to the letter.

That was what brought her into Kling's emporium, on this afternoon, for thread and needles. Mr. Kling himself, who remembered her, waited on her. She shook hands with him, and, after some indecision on his part, he inquired after the health of her father. He understood, of course, that this might not be polite, since James Buckner had simply skipped the country in the middle of the night, leaving his daughter to be raised by a saloonkeeper and his wife. Mary answered his inquiry offhandedly.

“I'm sure I don't know, Mr. Kling,” she said. “You know as much about him as I do.”

It was a cool answer and it put Kling in his place. He resented her tone and recalled with considerable satisfaction what a little liar she used to be. All the old timers remembered that whopper she had told on the night James Buckner left San Jon—about him being murdered by some of the cattlemen near here. Some of the old fogies even believed it for a while, until James Buckner turned up in Santa Fe. Men who remembered him had seen him down there. He was a changed man, maybe a little crazy. Certainly he had a pretty daughter, though, even if she was a little uppish and inclined to stretch the truth.

But Mary's smile soon won him over. She was in trouble, she said.

“What trouble?” Kling inquired kindly.

“I want some dresses made, Mr. Kling. Do you know of a dressmaker in town?”

“Why, there's two of them. There's Mrs. Benson. My wife goes to her, I think. Then there's Lily Beauchamp. She's young and flighty, but she needs the money powerful bad.”

“Does she do good work?” Mary wanted to know.

“I—I—not so good as Mrs. Benson,” Kling said honestly.

“But she does need money. Well, these things are pretty simple to make. Perhaps I ought to give her my trade,” Mary said.

“That's right kind of you, Miss Buckner,” Kling said, and proceeded to tell Mary where Lily Beauchamp lived.

All this was to advertise the fact that the meeting of Mary Buckner and Lily Beauchamp was purely by accident. Jim Wade and Cope both needed Lily in their scheme and had her promise through Ben that she would help. Scoville, who was posing as a saddle tramp wanting work, was to live there. It would afford him a place to live and her protection in Ben's absence. With Mary's introduction to Lily, this small band of conspirators would be as tight-knit as possible, and yet their associations must seem casual and accidental to the public.