First thing I saw was the rifle. It was a Henry .44 and there was a fresh groove down the stock, cut by a bullet. There was blood on the leaves, but nothing else.
Gun in hand, I eased into the brush and stood still, listening. It was so quiet I seemed to be hearing my own heart beat Somewhere off across country a crow cawed; otherwise there was silence. Then the door of the trading post opened and I heard boot heels on the boards.
My eyes scanned the brush, but I could see no sign of anyone there. Parting the branches with my left hand, I stepped past another bush. On a leaf there was a bright crimson spot … fresh blood. Just beyond it was a barely visible track of a boot heel in the soft earth. I was expecting a shot at any moment. It was one of those places where a man figures he’s being watched by somebody he can’t see.
Then I saw a slight reddish smear on the bark of a tree where the wounded man had leaned. He was hit pretty good, it looked like, although a man can sometimes bleed a good bit from a mighty inconsiderable wound.
I could tell that the man I hunted had gone right on through the brush. I followed through and suddenly came to the other side.
For about fifty yards ahead the country was open, and a quick glance told me that nothing stirred there. Standing under cover of the brush, I began to scan the ground with care, searching every clump of grass or cluster of small rocks – anywhere a man might be concealed.
The ground on this side of the knoll sloped away for several feet, and this place was invisible from the trading post. A man might slip down from the mountain, or come around the base and ease into the brush, leave his horse and get right tip to that knoll without anybody being the wiser.
Pistol ready, I walked slowly toward the further trees, my eyes scanning the terrain all around me. Twice I saw flecks of blood.
Beyond the trees, on a small patch of grass, I saw where a horse had been tied on a short rope. By the look of the grass he had been tied there several times, each time feeding close around him. Whoever tied the horse had allowed him just enough rope to crop a little grass without giving him more rope than a man could catch up along with the reins, in one quick move.
Whoever had been watching there must have suddenly decided to try his shot. It must have seemed like a copper-riveted cinch, catching me out like that. Only my move in getting Judith out of the way had saved me.
Galloway had come up behind me. “You’re bleedin’, Flagan,” he said.
I put my hand to my ear, which had been smarting some, and brought it away bloody. From the feel of it, the bullet had just grazed the top of the ear.
We followed the rider back into the hills a short way, then lost his trail on a dusty stretch. We found no more blood, and from the way he’d moved in going to his horse I figured he hadn’t been hurt more than I had been.
When we got back to the trading post, Evan Hawkes was there, making plans with Tom Sharp for the roundup.
It turned out they had friends in common, stock-buyers and the like. There were eight or ten other cattlemen around the country who were all close friends of Sharp, and all of them had come to be wary of the Fetchen boys.
“One thing I want understood,” Hawkes said. “This is our fight. They opened the ball, now we’re going to play the tune and they’ll dance to our music.”
“Seems to me you’re outnumbered,” said Dobie Wiles. He was the hard-bitten foreman of the Slash B. “And it seems to me that JBF Connected brand will cover our brand as well as yours.”
“They left blood on the Kansas grass,” Galloway said, “blood of the Half-Box H. I figure Hawkes has first call.”
He gave a slow grin. “And that includes us.”
Chapter 12
The cattle came down from the hills in the morning, drifting ahead of riders from the neighboring ranches. They moved out on the grass of the bottom land and grazed there, while the riders turned again to the hills.
At first only a few riders were to be seen, for the land was rough and there were many canyons. The cowboys moved back into the hills and along the trails and started the cattle drifting down toward the valley.
The chuck wagon was out, and half a dozen local cattlemen, all of whom rode out from time to time only to return and gather near the wagon. James Black Fetchen himself had not appeared, although several Fetchens were seen riding in the hills. Once, Evan Hawkes roped a young steer and, with Tom Sharp as well as two other cattlemen beside him, studied the brand. It was his Half-Box H worked over to a JBF Connected.
“They do better work down in Texas,” Breedlove commented. “There’s rustlers down there who do it better in the dark.”
Rodriguez looked around at Hawkes. “Do you wish to register a complaint, Señor?”
“Let it go. That steer will be wearing a different brand before this is over.”
“As you will.”
“When this is over, if there is any steer you want to question we can either skin him and check the brand from the reverse side, or turn him into a pool for it to be decided. I want no cattle but my own, and no trouble with anyone but Fetchen.”
“And that trouble, Señor – when does it come?”
“I hope to delay it until after the roundup. There’s a lot the Fetchens don’t know about cattle and rustling. If I figure it right, they’re going to come up short and never know what hit them.” He glanced around at them. “Gentlemen, this is my fight, mine and the Sackett boys’. There’s no reason to get mixed up in it if you don’t have to.”
“This is our country,” Sharp replied, “and we don’t take to rustlers. We’ll give you all the room you want, but if you need a hand, just lift a yell and we’ll be coming.”
“Of course, Señor,” Rodriguez said mildly, “but there may have to be trouble. A rider from the Fetchen outfit was drinking in Greenhorn. It seems he was not polite to one of my riders. There were seven Fetchens, and my man was alone. At the roundup he will not be alone.”
Hawkes nodded. “I know … I heard some talk about that, but shooting at a roundup might kill a lot of good men. Let’s take it easy and see what happens when the tally is taken.”
I listened and had no comment to offer. It was a nice idea, if it worked. It might work, but there were a few outsiders riding with the Fetchen gang now, and they might know more about brand-blotting than the Fetchens did. That scar-faced puncher with the blond hair, for example. What was his name again? … Russ Menard.
I spoke the name out loud, and Rodriguez turned on me. “Russ Menard? You know him?”
“He’s here. He’s one of them.”
The Mexican’s lips tightened, then he bared his teeth in a smile that held no humor. “He is a very bad hombre, this Menard. I think no faster man lives when it comes to using the pistol. If he is one of them, there will surely be trouble.”
The cattle had scattered so widely in the hills that it was brutally hard work combing them out of the brush and canyons. This was rugged country – canyons, brush, and boulders, with patches of forest, and on the higher slopes thick stands of timber that covered miles. But there was water everywhere, so most of the stock was in good shape. Aside from Hawkes’s rustled herd, there were cattle from a dozen other outfits, including those of Tom Sharp. By nightfall several hundred head were gathered in the valley.
Most of the riders were strangers, men from the ranches nearby, good riders and hard-working men. They knew the country and they knew the cattle and so had an advantage over us, who were new to the land. Most of them were Mexicans, and they were some of the best riders and ropers I ever did see. Galloway and me were handy with ropes but in no way as good as most of those around us, who had been using them since they were knee-high to a short pup.
Most of the stock was longhorn, stuff driven in from Texas over the Goodnight Trail. The cattle from New Mexico were of a lighter strain when unmixed with longhorn blood; and there was a shorthorn or white-face stock brought in from Missouri or somewhere beyond the Mississippi. Both Costello and Sharp had been driving in a few cattle of other breeds, trying to improve their stock to carry more beef.