the Man from the Broken Hills (1975) (13 page)

"Possibly," she agreed, but she did not seem too sure.

"Do you think Balch and Saddler are stealing cattle?"

She hesitated over that, then shook her head. "I don't know. Neither does Pa. We've lost ... we've lost a good many but not like you have. Balch claims they've lost young stuff, too. It doesn't make any kind of sense."

She turned to look at me. "There's been talk about you, Milo. I thought I'd better tell you. People are saying no cowboy has the kind of money you spent at the box social."

I shrugged. "I saved some money ridin' shotgun for Wells Fargo, then I hit a pocket of stuff placer-mining up in northern New Mexico."

"Most cowhands would have spent it."

I shrugged. "Maybe. I'm not much of a drinker. I carry a gun, and a good many folks know I've ridden shotgun. Besides, I've covered the Outlaw Trail, Canada to Mexico. A man riding that kind of country has to be careful."

"Is this what you're going to do the rest of your life? Just ride up and down the country?"

Smiling, I shook my head. "No, one day I'll settle down to ranching. Maybe I will. Barnabas says I was born for it, liking stock and the country and all."

I paused. "You'd like Barnabas," I added, "he's traveled in Europe, and he reads. He thinks a lot, too. He's planning to import some breeding stock from Europe, mix it with longhorns. The way he figures, the day of the longhorn is short. They'll do well in rough graze like this, but they walk too much and don't carry enough beef. Although," I added, "I've seen some mighty fat longhorns, given the graze."

It was mighty pleasant, sitting there talking to Ann, but somewhere along the line I just dozed off. I'd lost blood, I was feeling sick, and I was tired from my struggle through the mud while ailing.

When I awakened again, the cabin was still, and only coals lay on the hearth. Ann was asleep on Fuentes' bed. Hearing a stir, I raised up on an elbow and saw Fuentes sitting up. He grinned at me and put a finger to his lips. He'd been sleeping on the floor with his blanket-roll gear.

He went out, and I heard him washing beside the door. He automatically threw the water from the pan where it would usually help settle dust, although on this morning after the rain there was none. Then he came in. And moving silently, except for the tinkle of those big Spanish spurs he wore, he made coffee, stirred up the fire and added fuel.

Favoring my bad hip, I sat up.

Ann had put my rifle on the bed beside me--and my six-shooter, too. She'd forgotten to bar the door, and that was probably because she hadn't intended going to sleep.

She awakened suddenly. She stared at Fuentes and, when he bowed slightly, she smiled. "I must have fallen asleep. I am ashamed. Anyone could have come in."

"You were tired, senorita. It was best that you slept. But the major will be worried."

"Yes," she admitted, "this is the first time I've been gone all night."

She looked delightful, and in a matter of minutes she had washed, done something to her hair, and had taken over the cooking from Fuentes.

"I rode to talk to Hinge," he explained. "When I told him you were missing, he was very angry. He was worried, too. I had ridden to look, but your tracks were gone under the rain."

We ate and talked, then Ann was gone. My fever seemed to have disappeared during the night, although I still felt kind of used up. It gave me a cold twinge when I thought of both of us asleep and somebody out there who wanted to kill me. Yet Ann could not long have been asleep before Fuentes rode in.

Joe Hinge rode in. "Get well," he told me after we'd talked some. "We're goin' to need you. We got the west range to ride, an' that's where Balch says we can't go."

"Give me three, four days," I said.

"Take you longer than that," he said, "you surely look peaked." He changed the subject abruptly. "Both times you were shot at you were southeast of here?"

At my nod, he took off his hat and scratched his head thoughtfully. "You know, some things a body can figure. There's no way it could be Balch or Saddler ... Roger, maybe. Tory Benton was riding away off north of here, and so was Knuckles Vansen."

He paused. "It's mighty easy for somebody to think that way out on the plains nobody would ever figure who shot you, but look at it. All the men we know of got jobs. They have to be somewhere. You locate those who were where they were supposed to be and you've trimmed down the list."

Hinge continued. "I can account for most of Balch's hands, and the major's as well. I know where ours were, and most of the major's."

"Harley?" I asked.

"Him? He wouldn't shoot nobody. He's got no cause to. Anyway, he never goes anywhere but our place and home. He'd have been home when you were shot at and that's a good distance off."

"Is he friendly to Balch? I'm only asking because I don't know him."

"Balch?" said Hinge. "Hell, no! They had words a while back over a horse, but Harley, he keeps to hisself. Doesn't want any truck with anybody. Does his job, draws his money and keeps that place of his."

The thing that worried me was: there was no logical suspect except the unknown cattle thief, and there was a good chance he--or they--would be unknown around here. Chances are, it was somebody laying up in the hills, taking cattle when nobody was around.

Hinge rode off with Fuentes, and I laid back on the bed. They had to get back, and I couldn't yet ride. I could see the sunlight through the open door, and bees buzzing around the house. And somewhere, I could hear a mockingbird singing.

It was almighty quiet and pleasant, and it was a good time to think. One by one I began thinking over every aspect of the problem. First, Barnabas used to say, you've got to state your problem. A problem clearly stated is often a problem already half solved.

Somebody wanted me dead.

Who? And why?

Chapter
12

All my thinking got me nowhere at all. Somebody wished me dead--that was all I knew. I almost dozed off along there, just thinking about it, and then suddenly I was wide awake and scared.

I was alone. I was wounded and in bed. And somewhere out yonder was a man with a rifle who was hunting me!

That was enough to wake anybody up. To my way of thinking, he either figured me dead or still down there in that bottom somewhere. But suppose I was wrong? Suppose even now he was up there in the brush somewhere waiting a chance to get a shot at me?

Supposing he had watched Fuentes, Hinge and Roper ride away? Supposing he had seen Ann leave earlier?

Then he surely knew I was alone. What he couldn't know was that, though I was weak from loss of blood and in no shape to straddle a horse, I was still able and willing to shoot.

Nobody lives long low-rating an enemy. You've got to give the other fellow credit for having as much savvy as you have, and maybe a little more.

Suppose he knew I was here, and was waiting for me to drift off to sleep, like I had almost done? Suppose--another thought came--just suppose he didn't have any plan of coming in on me, but just decided to wait up on the knoll, just waiting for me to come out?

Yet, me being sick and in bed, he couldn't expect me to come out and give him a target. Unless something drove me out.

Fire!

That was foolish. I was just imagining things. No doubt, whoever it was who'd shot at me was miles away with his stolen cattle. He had wounded me, put me out of action, and I wouldn't be trailing him for a while. If I was the kind who scared easy, he might figure I'd never try.

What sleep had been coming over me had disappeared. I was wide awake now, and scared. The trouble was, I was in no shape to move quick, no shape for a running battle--or for a battle of any kind.

I could get out of the cabin if I was lucky, I could get into the brush. But I knew what brush fighting meant. A man has to be ready to move, and if he moves too slow he's dead. He has to be alert, too, and I was kind of foggy. I could think, all right, but could I think fast enough? React with enough speed?

The door stood open, for the air was fresh and clear. There were two windows, one on each side of the cabin, but only that one door. And the windows were high as a man's shoulder. A body could hoist himself up and crawl through one, but there was no easy way to do it and no way that wouldn't, for a minute or so, leave a man helpless. And going through a window would be sure to break what scab had started healing over my wound.

Yet I was only easily visible from one window. The bed was close against the wall and hard to see except from the door or one window.

It was very still. I strained my ears for the slightest sound, and heard nothing. One hand was on my Winchester, but I withdrew it and slid my Colt from its scabbard. I needed a gun I could move quickly, easily, to cover any point.

Minutes passed ... Nothing. Whoever was out there ... if anybodywas out there ... might be waiting for me to move. So I would not move.

Yet I was being almighty foolish. I was getting scary as a girl alone in a house. I'd no reason to believe anybody would be coming after me here--except for my imagination.

The trouble was, I was a sitting duck and I didn't like the idea.

No sound, no movement. My horse was in the corral. If I heard a sound, it would probably be that horse, yet I heard nothing.

I dozed. Scared as I was and worried, I dozed. That was what weakness would do for a man. What snapped me out of it was a noise. It was a very small noise and maybe it was just inside my own head. Gun in hand, I rolled up on one elbow and tried to look out the open door, but I could see nothing but the gradually drying earth beyond the door, a distant hillside and a corner of the corral.

What had I heard? Had it been a step? No ... A step had a different sound? A horse bumping a trough, or something? No.

It had been a small sound, a kind ofplink . It might have been anything. The handle of the coffeepot lay against the side of the pot, and it might have been raised a little, and just finally settling down against the side of the pot as the lessening of heat cooled the metal.

It might have been that, but I didn't believe it was. I lay back on the bed, staring up at the ceiling. Somebody wanted me dead ... The problem was still there. If I could figure out who, I might know why, and even figure how he--or they--would try to kill me.

Here I was, worried and all on edge just at the idea that somebody might be out there.

The sound ... What had it been? Carefully, I mentally sorted familiar sounds and tried to discover what it was I'd heard. In any event, I hadn't heard it again.

It had been a very small sound, anyway. Yet I could not relax. My muscles were tense, my nerves on edge. Something was wrong ... Something was about to happen. I forced myself to lie still, telling myself I was being silly. I could see out the door and all was quiet, and the one horse I could now see was browsing quietly on some wisps of hay left about the corral. What I needed was rest ... just rest. I had to calm down and relax.

I turned on my side, facing the wall. For a moment I lay absolutely still, petrified into immobility.

For as I turned on my side to face the wall, I found myself staring into the muzzle of a gun pushed through a crack where the chinking between the logs had been picked out. I stared, and then I came off the bunk with a lunge that sent a shock of agony through my wounded hip. I fell sprawling on the floor, the blast of the shot ringing in my ears. There was smoke in the room and the smell of singed wood and wool, and then I was on my feet, gun in hand, hopping toward the door.

Outside my horse had his head up, ears pricked, looking off to my right. I turned around the door post, gun poised ... and saw nothing.

I could feel the blood running down my side from my reopened wound, but I waited, clinging to the doorjamb with my left hand, my right gripping the gun, poised for a shot.

Nothing...

For several minutes I waited, and then I turned myself around and fell into a chair, back to the wall, looking at my bunk.

Somebody had picked the dried clay from the cracks between the logs, using a stick or a knife blade, perhaps, and then had thrust the muzzle through. Had I remained lying where I'd been, I would now be dead, for that bullet would have taken me right through the skull.

Again I got up, peering from the windows, but there was nothing to see. That faint, first sound I had heard was probably the dried mud falling to the ground, striking against a rock or something.

Whoever had tried to kill me had been in this cabin. Whoever had tried had known exactly where the bed was, exactly where my head would be laying on the pillow. He had known exactly the spot at which to pick away the plaster.

Whoever it was wanted to killme . Not just a cowhand who happened to trail a horse thief, butme , a particular person. It might be one of the Balch and Saddler outfit. For there was no doubt that my presence among the Stirrup-Iron riders stiffened their backs, and my death would weaken them considerably.

I limped along the wall. I looked out ... nothing, nobody. Now I must be very careful. I dared not trust myself anywhere without being careful.

Impatiently, I looked around. I had to get out of here. The cabin was a trap. As long as I was here, I was available to the planning of the would-be killer, and I had to get out. Yet how to escape with him out there? And he would be, I was sure, somewhere right outside, awaiting a chance.