To Nancy, the Kaybar was one of the few permanent things in a changing world until she overheard a casual comment in the store in Alamitos one day while getting her mail.
A couple of drummers waiting to see the proprietor had been discussing land titles and their general insecurity.
The idea nagged at her consciousness until she went to her father’s desk and the big iron safe and got out the ranch papers. There were bills, receipts, records of cattle bought or sold, payroll records, and lists of expenditures and planned development, but there was no deed.
Everything had been kept with meticulous care, and had there been a deed it would have been among those papers.
When her father and uncle had come West title deeds had no importance. They stopped where there was water and grass and they “owned” land by right of possession. That right was never questioned in the early days except by roving Indians. Colonel Kerrigan had talked business with the Indians and had bought land from them. Several times since then he had, when the years were bad and the Indians hungry, given them a few head of steers.
For a long time there had been nobody else within miles, the ranch had grown larger, the few deals made had been by driving cattle East, selling to the Army or to survey parties.
It had taken the trip to Santa Fe to show Nancy how flimsy was this rock upon which she was building her life.
Her father and uncle had settled on the land eighteen years before when she was scarcely three, and she had come to live on Kaybar when she was five. Twice, before she left for school, she had survived Indian attacks on the ranch, both by roving bands of Paiutes.
They had a claim, the judge assured her, by right of possession, and such claims were usually allowed, but settlers were streaming West and Congress was looking favorably on the claims of the settlers wanting land. That her father had bought land from the Indians might not help at all, for another Indian could always be found to dispute the right of the original Indians to sell land at all.
Out on the knoll west of the ranch house, and not quite to the Continental Divide, were buried her father, her aunt, and uncle, and three cowhands who had died in fights to save the ranch from Indians. Buried in a neat row along the farther fence of the little cemetery were nine Paiutes and three White Mountain Apaches who had died trying to massacre the ranchers.
Nancy got out the carefully drawn map her father had prepared of the range where their cattle grazed. The ranch lay south of the railroad and, roughly, from the Divide to the lava beds, called the malpais, and south to the Datil Mountains. What was called the home ranch, however, comprised fifty-five sections of land. With the exception of a few widely scattered meadows used to grow hay against the winter, none of it could be considered farm land.
For a long time she studied the map. It was a good map, for her father had been an Army engineer in the war with Mexico, and had had good training in the field. Every waterhole was carefully marked as well as seeps and such places where water might be found in the wet years. Upon those waterholes the ranch depended; without them the ranchers could not exist, nor could anyone else.
Cattle would walk miles for water, but there was a point beyond which it would not pay for they walked off good beef. That was why several of the waterholes on the range had been developed by themselves, maintained by themselves, to keep the stock from wandering farther than necessary.
From earliest childhood she had been taught to accept responsibility, and to make her own decisions and abide by them. “Every youngster wants to be grownup,” her father had said, “but the difference between a child and an adult is not years, rather it’s a willingness to accept responsibility, to be responsible for one’s own actions.”
It was a lesson she learned well, and in the years since the death of her father the ranch under her management had earned money and unproved in value. It was she who had conceived the idea of digging for water and thus creating new waterholes.
Nancy went to the door. Flynn was standing near the corral, talking to Pete Gaddis.
“Ed, will you come here a minute? And don’t go away, Pete. I want to talk to you, too.”
When Flynn was seated she had Juana, the Mexican girl, bring coffee. Then she explained why she had gone to Santa Fe. He sat very still, not looking at her, but tracing imaginary patterns on the table with his finger.
“Ed,” she said finally, “we shall have to move fast. I have a bad feeling about all this. I want you to file on Iron Springs. I’d like Pete Gaddis to file on the Blue Hole, and Johnny Otero on Rock House. The ranch will provide everything needed and when the land has been proved up, we will buy it from you.”
“How will we manage it? If we all start a run on Santa Fe, somebody will start asking questions.”
“You’ll go by yourself. I want you to ride to Horse Springs, Ed, and take the stage from there. Come back the same way. I’d like it if nobody knew you were gone.”
He glanced up quickly. Ed Flynn did not know whether Nancy Kerrigan knew about Gladys Soper or not. Nancy was, Ed often thought, a very uncertain girl sometimes. Maybe she knew that he had been keeping Gladys and maybe she did not. Of one thing he was sure; Nancy Kerrigan would never admit it if she did.
“Nobody” meant Gladys, too. And that could make a difficulty.
“It will have to be you, Ed,” Nancy was saying. “They know you and they will file for you without creating any talk. And that is the way I want it.”
Gladys had plans for the next few days. This trip would raise hob with those plans, and Gladys could be difficult when she wished. Damn it, if there was only some way …
“And, Ed. Let’s double the saddle stock we’re keeping up. We’ll be doing a lot of riding from now on.”
It was the coming of the railroad that changed everything, Nancy thought. True, they had made a lot of money supplying beef to the workers when the road was being built but, when the railroad went in, the riffraff came.
That man on the train, with the florid face and the pale-blue eyes, now. Who was he. Why was he here? And why had he tried to attract her attention?
Had he known who she was? Had he guessed why she was in Santa Fe?
Chapter 3
Kettleman paused abruptly upon seeing the man sprawled in the brush. Standing close against the trunk of a pine, Kettleman surveyed the area with extreme care. Only when he was positive that he was alone did he approach the fallen man.
He lay on a gentle slope and, for concealment, he could not have fallen in a better position. Approached from any other angle he would have been invisible.
Kettleman knelt and examined the man. He was not dead. His pulse was strong. He had lost blood, but from a quick examination, Kettleman could find only a flesh wound. A bullet had cut through the heavy muscle under his arm.
Gathering a few sticks of curl leaf and dry cedar, Kettleman built a small, smokeless fire and when he had heated some water, he bathed the wound. As he worked the man moaned, then opened his eyes and stared at Kettleman.
“Who are you?”
“That’s what Nugent asked me. And you’d better be getting out of here because he will be coming back this way.”
With an effort the man sat up. “Can you carry double? I got to hide. Nugent figures to kill me.”
“Sorry … I have no horse.” Kettleman gathered his gear and stowed it. “And don’t ask further help from me because you know this country better than I do.”
“You ain’t much help.” The wounded man stared at him sourly. “What am I going to do?”
“Your problem. But I’d begin by getting out of here, because I do think Nugent intends to kill you, and I don’t blame him. You aren’t much good.”
The wounded man’s face flushed angrily. “What the hell do you know?”
“I know I cleaned your wound and you didn’t even take time to thank me.” Kettleman slung his packs again and picked up his weapons. “Whoever hired you had to go pretty far to find a man.”
“Who said anybody hired me?” The man’s eyes were cunning.
“Your kind is always hired,” Kettleman replied, “and seldom worth the cost. You’re on your own.”