Cap, who was riding point, drew up suddenly, and we closed in around him. Before us was an opening among the branches of the trees lining the trail. Several miles away we could see a green valley, perhaps five hundred feet lower down, and from it sunlight reflected from a window.
“That will be it,” Cap commented. “The way Sharp told it, we will be ridin’ Costello range at almost any minute.”
We pushed on, circling the smaller valleys that made a chain through the hills. Now, from time to time, cattle tracks showed among those of deer and elk.
The ranch, when we came upon it, lay cupped in the hills, a small but comfortable house set back on a green meadow where a stream curled through. There was slow smoke rising from the chimney, and a good lot of horses in the corrals. Sitting on the stoop in front of the house was a man with a rifle across his knees. We saw no other folks around.
In the meadow a dozen or so head of horses were grazing, the sun gleaming from their smooth flanks. It made a handsome sight, but the man on the stoop looked mighty like a guard.
Galloway sat his horse, giving study to the place, and I did likewise. “Looks too easy,” Galloway said after a bit. “I don’t like it.”
“It’s a nice morning,” Cap commented. “They might just be idling about.”
“Or hid out, waiting for us,” I said.
We waited, but Judith was impatient. “Flagan, I want to go down there. I want to see Pa.”
“You hold off,” I said. “You’ll see him soon enough … when we know it’s safe.”
“But he may be in danger!” she protested. “They killed my grandfather, you told me so yourself.”
“Yes, but it won’t ease your pa’s mind to have you in their hands, too. You just wait”
The valley where the ranch lay opened into another, wider valley that we could see as we moved along. There were a few cattle in the first one, and we could see more beyond. The grass was green and rich, and running down the streams there was all the snow water that any rancher could want for his stock. Costcllo had found a good place.
“They’re hid out,” Galloway said finally. “I have it in mind they’re expecting us. No ranch is quiet like that, this time of day. Not with so many men somewhere about.”
We had moved along to a lower bench among the trees, a place not forty feet from where the mountain dropped off into the valley. We saw a man come from the ranch house, saw the screen door shut behind him. From where we were, we could hear it slam.
This man, after a few minutes of talk, seated himself on the steps, while the first man went inside, apparently relieved from guard duty.
“Your pa,” Cap surmised, “must be in the house. Certain sure, there’s something or somebody down there to be watched over.”
Nobody was saying what we had been thinking, that it would make little sense to keep Costello alive … unless they were worried for fear some neighbor might insist on seeing him. By this time the Fetchens would know about Tom Sharp, a man not likely to be put off, nor one to trifle with. Yet time would be running out.
They might hold Costello as they had planned to hold Judith, one to be used in controlling the other. If Black Fetchen could get hold of Judith, marry her, and so establish legal claim to the Costello ranch, then Costello might be made to disappear, leaving them in control. It was a likely thing, but there was much that was puzzling about the whole affair, and about their possible connection with the Reynolds gang.
We waited under the trees, moving as little as possible, and keeping wary for fear we would be discovered. The whole thing was growing irksome, and Judith had my sympathy. Her pa was down there, and it was natural she should want to see him. Only we needed to know a few more things before we could act against them. We needed to know if Costello was alive, and how they were holding him, and we needed to know what they were after.
By now we were all pretty sure that the cattle had been incidental. They had the Half-Box H herd, and they would try to hold it, but I felt certain there was more to it than the herd, or even the ranch.
We had to wait them out. I knew they were not patient men and would soon tire of lying around in the brush, doing nothing.
“We’ve got to know more about this setup,” I said. “Cap, do you know the story of the Reynolds outfit?”
“No more than everybody hereabouts knows. They gave it out that they were Confederate sympathizers, and began robbin’ some gold trains and the like, letting it be known they were gettin’ the gold to hold for the South. But most folks thought they had no such idea – not after the gold started pilin’ up. They figured they planned to use it for themselves.”
“What happened to the gold?”
“I can’t say as I ever heard, although no doubt folks who lived round here could tell you.”
“Sharp would know,” Galloway suggested.
In the fading afternoon the Costello ranch looked mighty pretty. Shadows were stretching out, but down there the light was mellow and lovely. I could see why a man, even a mover like Costello, would like to settle in such a place. And there was good grazing in the hills around.
But we saw nothing of Costello, nor of anyone else at all.
The stars came out and the wind grew cool. Restlessly, I walked out to a place where the valley could be seen in more detail. There were lights in the ranch house, and shadows moved before some of the windows. Suddenly the door opened and someone went in. It was open long enough to admit two or three men.
Judith came up beside me. “Do you think Pa is down there, Flagan?”
“Uh-huh.”
She said nothing more for some time, and then wondered out loud, “Why did this happen to us?”
“I reckon folks have wondered that always, Judith. In this case it’s no accident, I’m thinking. Your pa or your grandpa knew something somebody else wanted to know, or else for some reason they need this ranch.”
“Flagan, I’ve been thinking about what you wanted to know … you know, if Pa had been, in Missouri in seventy-one. I am sure he was, because I’ve just remembered something.”
“What?”
“Pa had an uncle who wasn’t much good. He’d gone off and left us after he got into some trouble with the family, and he went out west. Nobody would talk about him much, but he got into more trouble … in Denver, I think it was.”
“And so?”
“He came back one night. I remember I woke up and heard talking in a low voice, in Pa’s side of the tent. I heard another man’s voice, a man who sounded odd … as if he was sick or something.”
That was all she remembered right then, but it was enough to start me thinking.
Maybe what the Costellos knew was nothing they picked up in trade. Maybe it was something that renegade told them that night in Missouri.
That renegade had been in or around Denver. So had Tirey Fletchen. And so had the Reynolds gang.
Chapter 11
We rode away down the mountain to a hollow in the hills, sheltered by overhanging cliffs and a wall of pines, and made camp there where we could have a fire.
“I figure if we go down to the ranch we’ll get so shot full of holes our hides wouldn’t be worth tanning,” Galloway said. “That outfit’s all laid out for an ambush, so let’s leave ’em wait.”
“Seems to me a likely time to be thinkin’ of them cattle,” Cap suggested.
“Now, there’s a good thought. Let’s dab a loop on some and check out the brand.”
So we settled down over coffee and bacon to consider. It stood to reason that if most of their crowd were waiting for us to show up, there would be only a few watching the cattle, if any at all. In these mountain valleys, with plenty of grass and water, cattle needed no watching.
The upshot of it was that when the sky lightened with another day coming, we saddled up and went off. The only one who was upset by our decision was Judith.
“This isn’t taking me any closer to Pa!” she objected. “I wish I could find a man like Ivanhoe or the Black Knight! He would ride right down there and bring Pa back!”
“You know,” I said, “I don’t carry any banners for the Fetchen boys, but if the Black Knight was to ride down amongst them in his tin suit he’d have a sieve for an overcoat. Those Fetchens may run short on morals, but morals don’t win no turkey-shoots! I know those boys, and they could part your hair with the first bullet and trim around your ears with the next two.