Once he had scouted the Deep Creek range and knew what lay before him, Bell had gone into his ranching with care. Times were changing. New men were coming west and the land would not alwavs be free.
Two other men had preceded him, briefly, on Deep Creek. Chuck Bullwinkle had filed in a claim high up on the slopes of Piety Mountain above the creek. The creek itself flowed from a small cave on Bullwinkle’s place, and Clay’s first step had been to buy that claim. Chuck Bullwinkle was tired of the loneliness and sold his own claim and another he had bought from a former partner.
Later, Bell bought another claim that straddled an old wagon route through the ridge that spread out in two directions from Black Butte. This range of mountains formed the far wall of the Deep Creek valley, opposite Piety Mountain. The result of these purchases left him in sole possession of the only two passes giving access to the inner plateau. They also left him in possession of the principal source of water.
Yet he was worried now. Logging off of the mountain and plateau would ruin him. Even the process of logging would force him to move his cattle off the Deep Creek range and back to the parched flatlands. Once the trees were gone, the washing away of the topsoil would ruin the plateau and the valley for grazing. Encroaching brush would finish it for good.
If forced to sell now, he could sell nothing but his cattle. When his debts were paid and his hands paid off, he would have nothing left for six years of hard work and planning.
He had no intentions of selling, but it was like him to consider all the facets of his problem. That he was in for a knockdown and drag-out fight, he knew. A shrewd judge of men, he did not take Devitt lightly. Jud was a man accustomed to victory and a man who would stop at nothing to win.
Hank Rooney, Bell’s foreman, was waiting for him.
“Got the boys out shoving them cows up from Stone Cup,” Hank said. “What’s happened?”
Briefly, and without hedging, Bell explained the situation. “It’s war, Hank. Unless I miss my guess, it’s a war to the death. He struck me as a tough, smart man.”
“Well,” Rooney spat, “things been sort of quiet, anyway. Will it be a shootin’ war?”
“Later, maybe. First it will be a war of strategy. Maybe he’s got it on me there. This won’t be my kind of fight, to start.”
Rooney considered that. He was a man pushing fifty, and no stranger to trouble. “You suppose he knows you’ve blocked the only two ways into this country?”
“Doubt it. We’ll play a waiting game. He’s got men that he’s got to feed and house. First, we’ll get some fat on our cows. We might have to sell some for fighting money.”
Hank looked dourly down the valley. “Bill Coffin said he seen Stag Harvey and Jack Kilburn in town. You want to hire them boys?”
“Too much blood behind ’em, Hank. I don’t want shooting if it can be avoided.”
Hank prodded at a rock with his toe. He was a lean, tall man, looking older than his years. He had come west with a herd from Ogallala, and before that had punched cows in Wyoming, Arizona, Nevada, and Utah. He was a veteran of three sheep and cattle wars, and although by no means a gunman, he was a tough old puncher who knew how to fight.
“I say if they want fight, give it to ’em.” He looked up. “What’s next, then?”
“Fell some logs and build a barricade across The Notch. That’s their best route to the plateau.”
Hank Rooney spat. “Reckon he knows about The Notch? Makes a man figure some. How come he knowed about this place, anyway? Nobody’s been around, no strangers, anyway.”
“Somebody told him about this timber,” Bell said. “It had to be a local man. But even the local men don’t know I filed on this land. At least, I don’t think they know. I rode all the way to the capital to file, and I doubt if there are four cattlemen in the state who have actually filed on or bought land. They merely squatted and started to run cows, claiming the land by living on it.”
Bell stripped the saddle from his mount. “I’d like to know who tipped him off. Have we got enemies, Hank?”
“Schwabe don’t cotton to us much. And it’s a cinch Devitt didn’t fall into this by accident. It looks like he came all primed to strip the logs off this range. Wonder if he’s made a deal with the government?”
Clay Bell walked to the veranda and sat down. He built a smoke while mentally reviewing the approaches to Deep Creek. The only two routes belonged to him. For a time he could deny access to the inner valley. But if Devitt acquired a right from the government he could not legally refuse right of way across his ranch.
He must think of everything first, to be ready, then sit tight and let Devitt make the first move. When he started there would be time enough to stop him. If he wanted to play rough—well, there was no man among the dozen employed by B-Bar who had not played rough before. His crew was small, but they were fighting men.
His ranch buildings lay athwart the entrance to Deep Creek by way of Emigrant Gap. The long abandoned road had passed through the Gap and across to leave by The Notch. Devitt might know of the road, for the existence of the timber had been made known to him somehow. This was not timber country; therefore Devitt had to have a local informant.
Sitting on the veranda, Bell examined the situation. The house was built of native rock and had walls three feet thick. There were five rooms—living room, kitchen, two bedrooms, and an office. The house was surrounded on all sides by the veranda, low-roofed and cool, and shaded by several huge old trees. When Bell ate at home, which was not often, he preferred to sit on the veranda where he could look down the valley. Nobody could approach from the valley side without being long under observation from the house. The house stood at one corner of a rectangle of ranch buildings and corrals. East and north of the house lifted sheer walls of rock. No more than thirty yards from the house was the stone chuckhouse known as the “wagon.” Beyond it, separated by about thirty feet, was the long, low, stone bunkhouse, and at the far end of the rectangle was another stone building divided into separate rooms. These were respectively the saddle and harness room, the tool house, the storeroom, and the blacksmith shop. The other side of the rectangle was a long stone barn with a loft filled with hay, and three corrals, two on one side of the barn, one on the other.
The stone buildings of the ranch effectually blocked all access to Deep Creek through Emigrant Gap unless two gates were opened by ranch personnel. One of these gates was between two of the stone ranch buildings.
Deep Creek plateau and the valley lay seven hundred feet higher than the ranch itself. That seven-hundred-foot rise was covered in two miles of trail, the last half-mile through a canyon that was a veritable bottleneck.
Bell paced the veranda restlessly. Despite the suggestion that Morton Schwabe might have been Devitt’s informant, he did not believe it. Schwabe was essentially a small-calibered man. Owning a small ranch, Schwabe would willingly do almost anything to injure Bell, but he would scarcely think of a thing like this.
Uneasily, he accepted the realization that behind this move lay another force, someone who had brought Jud Devitt into the country for his own reasons. Someone who had his own plans against Bell.
Hank Rooney was already at the table in the chuck-wagon when Clay walked in. “Boss,” he said, “we might send Rush and Montana over to The Notch right away.”
“Good idea. Rifles and plenty of grub, but no shooting if it can be avoided—but no trespassing, either.”
“And if they show up?” Rush Jackson was a bow-legged puncher from the Big Bend country of Texas.
“Send up a smoke. A straight smoke that they’re coming, and a single puff for every five men or less. We’ll have a man on Piety Mountain to relay the signal.”
During the excited talk that followed, Clay Bell ate in silence. There had been no trouble for him in Tinkersville, and he had hoped there would be none. He turned the matter over in his mind, trying to decide what the best solution would be. But his mind refused to cope with the problem. Instead, he kept thinking of Colleen Riley.