War on the Cimarron (10 page)

“All right. What do you aim to do?”

“Red, did you find out about that Cheyenne?”

Red nodded. “He's camped up on the Cimarron with a bunch of horse-stealin' bucks.”

Frank threw the last of the grub into the blanket, rolled it up and came to his feet. His jaw was set, and he hoisted up his levis like a man about to tackle some heavy work.

“I had time to do a little thinkin' in jail,” Frank said. “I've figured this out pretty simple. Whoever framed that whisky peddlin' on me wants me outlawed or in jail. The reason they want it is because they want our lease. And that could be only Corb or Milabel. And those same two outfits wanted the lease when Morg got it. One of them killed him. I dunno which one, and there ain't enough of us to beat it out of 'em. But it's one of them, and I aim to start whittlin' both down. Once I get 'em down to our size, then we'll find out who killed Morg.”

“How you goin' to do it?” Otey asked skeptically.

“I don't know,” Frank admitted. “I'm goin' to start out, though, by findin' out from that Indian who framed this whisky peddlin'. Then I'm goin' to strike. I'm goin' to hit hard and I'm goin' to hurt someone, and by the time I'm finished there'll be a price on my head. You get that, Otey?”

Otey nodded.

Frank went on, talking to him alone. “That's why I've got to have a man who's in the clear, who can't be arrested. You're the man, Otey. The only reason I'm takin' Red with me instead of you is that Red knows the country and you don't.”

“He'll steal you blind,” Otey said bluntly, glaring at Red.

“None of that!” Frank rapped out. “I don't think either one of you stole that bail money.” He looked at the rest of the crew. “You didn't see me tonight, you don't know what they're talkin' about. All you have to do is keep out of trouble, watch Corb and the Circle R so they don't hold a roundup on our beef and wait for me to get word to you. You all got that?”

They nodded. Samse drifted up to the fire with the two saddled horses.

“Beach, take Samse's horse and lead that horse I rode away from camp. The rest of you kick out that fire and get in your blankets and let Otey talk when the posse comes up. I'll see you in a couple days.”

It was breaking dawn, twenty-four hours later, when Red and Frank rode through the cottonwoods lining the great sandy bed of the Cimarron and saw the Indian camp. Two oversize tepees were pitched out in the open by the river, Indian fashion, and by the faint light of dawn there was nothing awake, not even a dog, in the Indian camp.

Frank untied his rope and shook it out, and Red did the same. Then Frank said, “You're sure this is the one?”

When Red nodded Frank touched his chestnut with his spurs and set his horse into a gallop. Red was behind and to the side of him.

As they bore down on the two tepees Frank waved Red to the one nearest the river and then started building his loop. As he came abreast the tepee he made his cast, and the rope settled over the cluster of poles that crisscrossed at the point of the skins. He slipped out of the saddle while his horse was running hard, hit the ground lightly, ran a few paces and turned. He was in time to see the rope, dallied to the horn, yank tight, and then the tepee reared up on one edge, half collapsed in mid-air and toppled over and was dragged off by his horse.

And from the pile of skins inside two Cheyenne Indians roused up, wide awake and frightened. They stared into Frank's twin guns.

Fifty feet away the second tepee went, and Red observed three Cheyennes in their blankets on the ground. They were still fast asleep. Red kicked them out of their blankets and prodded them over to join Frank's two, who were standing now, their faces slacked into sullen hostility.

Red joined Frank and looked over the five of them in the chill dawn. The Cheyenne who had turned in evidence against Frank was one of them, but his face was as impassive as the others. “Step out here,” Frank said in Comanche to him.

Grey Horse shuffled a step ahead of the others. His hair was braided with rawhide and hung in twin ropes over his shoulders.

Frank said mildly, “Who paid you to lie about that whisky?”

Grey Horse answered with a perfectly expressionless face, “You sell it to me.”

Frank looked at Red and then tossed his guns to the ground at Red's feet. He threw his Stetson on top of them. Grey Horse observed all this with an unblinking steady gaze.

“Maybe you didn't hear me,” Frank drawled, stepping closer to him. “Who paid you to lie?”

The Indian didn't answer, only looked sullenly at the ground.

Frank hit him then, hit him full in the nose, and Grey Horse sprawled on his back. He came up silently, turned and streaked for where the far tepee had been. Frank took after him. Grey Horse reached the blankets and was fumbling frantically among them when Frank dived on him. The impact sent Grey Horse sprawling out onto the hard-packed ground in front of the tepee that was the lip of the cutbank shore of the Cimarron.

Grey Horse came to his feet then, and he had a knife, and now he faced Frank in a half-crouching attitude, a cunning light in his eyes.

Red sent one warning shot over Grey Horse's head, and the Indian maneuvered to put Frank between him and Red.

Frank called out over his shoulder, “Don't hit him, Red. Let me handle him.”

“He'll stick you, dammit!” Red cried.

“Let him alone,” Frank said.

He walked spraddle-legged toward Grey Horse. When he was close he made a feint with his right hand, and the Indian slashed out with the knife toward his arm.

Quick as thought Frank's left palm slapped down on the Indian's wrist and his fingers closed on it. He tried to bring the Indian's arm up to bend it behind him and got it only shoulder high, and then Grey Horse grappled with him. For a long moment they were locked in struggle, Grey Horse trying to drive the knife down. It was a contest of brute strength, and Grey Horse put his heart into it.

When Grey Horse was straining until his breath came in great grunting gasps Frank half turned and pulled down on his arm and threw his hip into the Indian's belly. All Grey Horse's weight and strength were bearing forward, and he pivoted over Frank's hip, doing a full somersault in the air. Frank held tightly to his wrist, and he heard Grey Horse grunt and then land flat on his back. The knife dropped to the ground from nerveless fingers, and Frank kicked it over the lip of the cutbank.

Grey Horse tried to spring to his feet. He was half up when Frank clipped him solidly across the jaw with a full swing. Grey Horse went down again, almost balancing on the edge of the cutbank. He scrambled to his feet again, trying to dive to one side. Frank's arcing fist caught him behind the ear and drove him over the cutbank.

Looking over the edge, Frank saw him land on his face in the shallow channel of the Cimarron, ten feet below. Frank leaped. He landed astride the Cheyenne's back and drove him down into the water. Grey Horse fought with a wild fury and managed to turn over, and that was what Frank wanted. Frank stood upright, Grey Horse lying face up between his legs, and put both hands around Grey Horse's throat. Then he forced his head under the moiled water, counted five and yanked him up.

Grey Horse was thrashing helplessly, and when he came above the surface he choked and fought futilely at Frank's hands. Frank let him cough for a moment, then said in Comanche, “Who paid you to lie?”

Grey Horse didn't answer, and Frank rammed his head down again. This time he held if ten seconds, and Grey Horse came up gagging, his face turning a dark color.

“Talk!” Frank said.

Still Grey Horse wouldn't speak, and Frank, raging mad, shoved him under again. He held him there until the peak of his struggle was over and then brought him up. This time the Indian's eyes were glassing over. Frank took both his braids in one hand and held his head and slapped him with the other hand. When Grey Horse's eyes focused Frank grabbed him by the throat again and shook him.

“Talk, damn you,” he raged, “or you'll drown this time!”

Grey Horse made a feeble gesture of assent and murmured, “Milabel.”

“Where'd he get the whisky?” Frank demanded.

“Steal 'um Corb cache,” Grey Horse said in English.

Frank flung him into the water and waded out to the bank and climbed it. Red, his face tense, relaxed when he saw Frank come up. And then Red began to curse in relief. He prodded the Indians over to the cutbank and then kicked them off into the Cimarron. Grey Horse was sitting on the bottom, retching into the stream.

Frank got the horses, coiled the ropes and brought the horses over. He and Red mounted and looked down into the channel where the five wet Cheyennes, their faces livid with hatred, were shivering in the cold dawn, and they rode off into the prairie.

“Who was it?” Red asked.

“Milabel. He raided one of Corb's whisky caches.”

Red was silent a moment, and then he murmured gloomily, “I was afraid of that,” and looked at Frank. “Dammit,” he burst out, “a man can fight that crew of Corb's hard cases! But how can you fight thirty men?”

Frank looked at him, his eyes grave, and a slow smile broke his face. “There's a way,” he murmured. “There always is in a three-cornered fight.”

Red scowled, watching Frank closely. “You mean sell out to the highest bidder and then throw in with him to lick the other outfit?”

“Wrong,” Frank said softly. “Get the other two to fightin', and when they're both down jump 'em.”

Red grinned. “Fightin' over what?”

“We can fix that later,” Frank said. “What we got to do now is make sure this is goin' to be three cornered and not four cornered.”

Red looked puzzled.

“Barnes,” Frank said. “He's lost five thousand on me, Red. And he's liable to think he's been seven kinds of a grass-green fool for takin' my side. We got to keep him on our side.”

It was well after dark when Frank and Red pulled into the dark shadow of the cottonwood that stood in front of Hopewell Barnes's house. Red led the way to the porch of the house, where he paused, made sure there were no visitors inside, then stepped up on the porch and knocked softly.

Luvie Barnes came to the door. “Oh, it's you,” she said, dislike in her voice.

“Us,” Red corrected and brushed past her into the hall. Frank followed him, taking off his hat. Luvie Barnes's mouth opened in amazement at sight of Frank, and Frank gently closed the door behind her.

When Luvie found her voice she said, “Don't you know there's a reward out for your capture?”

“I reckoned there would be.”

“You certainly don't mind making other people share your risk, do you?” Luvie said, anger creeping into her voice.

“We want to talk to your dad,” Red said.

Luvie's angry gaze shifted to Red. “I'm surprised at that. We both supposed you'd be on your way to Texas with Dad's money by now.”

Red's face colored but he held his tongue. Luvie didn't bother to ask them into the living room. She paused in the living-room doorway and announced. “Here's your two jailbirds, Dad, come home to roost.”

Barnes stepped into the hall and did not offer to shake hands. He seemed inclined to be friendly but was not sure whether he should be, in the face of what had happened two nights ago.

Red said bluntly, “Barnes, that money you gave me was stolen out of my room.”

“Where did you hide it?” Luvie asked just as bluntly.

“Luvie!” Barnes said. “Let's hear what he has to say.”

“That's all there is to it,” Red said. “It's gone. I dunno where. My door was locked when I went to sleep and it was locked when I woke up. Still, the money wasn't there.”

Luvie said sweetly, “Maybe you just didn't let your right hand know what your left hand was doing.”

Red shifted his feet and didn't say anything, watching Barnes.

Frank spoke then. “It looks pretty queer, Barnes, but that's the way it happened. I've come to make good, if I can. Your bail money would have been held by the government till my trial, sometime in the fall, and then it would have been returned to you. I'll have your five thousand dollars by fall.”

“Of course you will,” Luvie said dryly. “You'll just tell the government not to look, and then you'll get a job and earn five thousand dollars.”

“Confound it!” Barnes burst out. “Let these men talk, Luvie.”

Frank drawled, “I think your daughter has something to say to me in the kitchen, Barnes. I'm ready to go, Miss Barnes.” He stepped over to Luvie, grasped her arm firmly and, in spite of her efforts to free herself, led her to the end of the hall and then into the kitchen, where he closed the door behind them.

Luvie was really angry now, as angry as she had been that morning out at the spread.

“Miss Barnes,” Frank said levelly, “you don't like me. Not any. Tell me why.”

“Because you've taken advantage of a bighearted man,” Luvie said just as evenly. “You're wild and you're reckless and you're a braggart. You're going down and you're determined to drag Dad down with you. I won't let you do it.”

“You mean you're goin' to fight me from now on?”

“All I can,” Luvie said.

“I don't think so,” Frank countered. He was regarding her with thoughtful gray eyes that seemed to bore clean through her.

“Then you don't know me!” Luvie said defiantly.

“I know something about you,” Frank drawled. “Something you wouldn't be proud of if it came to your dad's ears.”

Luvie was suddenly sober. “What?”

Frank said, “There were just four people in the world who knew your dad gave Red that money—your dad, Red, Otey and you.”

“What does that prove?” Luvie asked, her face intent.

“Red didn't take that money. Otey wouldn't take any money, ever. Your dad gave Red the money, so he would hardly take it back. Now you figure out the rest of it. I already did, while I was in jail.”