“Ransford! When did you get back?”
Storm saw a hand drop on the veteran’s shoulder, half turning him to face the speaker. It was a hand almost as brown as his own. And above it, around that equally brown wrist –! Storm did not betray the shock he felt. There was only one place that particular ornament could come from. For it was the ketoh of the Dineh – the man’s bracelet of his own people developed from the old bow-guard of the Navajo warrior! And what was it doing about the wrist of an Arzoran settler?
Without realizing that he was unconsciously preparing for battle, the Terran moved his feet a little apart, bracing and balancing his body for either attack or defence, as his eyes moved along the arm, clothed conventionally in frawn fabric, up to the face of the man who wore the ketoh. The stranger and Ransford had drawn a little apart, and now in his turn Storm shifted back against the wall, wanting to watch them without being himself observed.
The face of the settler was as brown as his hand – a weather-burned brown. But his were not Navajo features – though the hair above them was as black as Storm’s own. And it was a strong, attractive face with lines of good humour bracketing the wide mouth, softening the almost too-firm line of the jaw, while the eyes set beneath rather thick brows were a deep blue.
Storm was not too far away to hear Ransford’s return cry of “Quade!”
He had caught the hand from his shoulder and was shaking it vigorously. “I just got in, rode herd for Larkin down from the Port. Say, Brad, he’s got some good stuff in his new stud string –”
The wide mouth curved into a smile. “Now that’s news, Ranny. But we’re glad to have you back, fella, and in one unbroken piece. Heard a lot of black talk about how bad things were going out there – toward the end –”
“Our Arzor outfit got into it late. Just one big battle and some moppin’ up. Say – Brad, I want you to meet –”
But Storm took two swift steps backward, to be hidden by a push of newcomers, and Ransford could not see him. For once it was useful to be smaller than the settler breed.
“Queer –” The veteran’s voice carried puzzlement. “He was right here behind me. Off-worlder and a good kid. Rode herd down for Larkin and can he handle horses! Terran –”
“Terran!” repeated Quade, his smile gone. Those dirty Xiks!” His words became highly flavoured and combined some new expressions Storm did not recognize. All worlds, it seemed, developed their own brand of profanity. “I only hope the devils who planned that burn-off were cooked in their turn – to a crisp! Your man deserves every break we can give him. I’ll look him up – any good horseman is an asset. I hear you’re going out to the Vakind –”
They moved on but Storm remained where he was, surprised and not a little ashamed to find that the hands resting on the belt about his flat middle were trembling a little.
A meeting such as this did not match with the nebulous plans he had made. He wanted no curious audience when he met Quade – and then each of them should have a blaster – or better still – knives! Storm’s settlement with his man must not be one of the relatively bloodless encounters of Arzoran custom but something far more decisive and fatal.
The Terran was about to go out when a bull-throated roar rising above the clamour in the room halted him.
“Quade!” The man who voiced that angry bellow made Brad Quade seem almost as slender as a Norbie.
“Yes, Dumaroy?” The warmth that had been in his voice while he spoke with Ransford was gone. Storm had heard such a tone during his service days – that inflection meant trouble. He stayed to watch with a curiosity he could not control.
“Quade – that half-baked kid of yours has been ridin’ wild again – stickin’ his nose in where it isn’t wanted. You pull herd guard on him, or someone’s goin’ to do it for you!”
That someone being you, Dumaroy?” The ice thickened into a glacial deposit.
“Maybe. He roughed up one of my boys out on the Peak Range –”
“Dumaroy!” There was the snap of a quirt in that and the whole room was silent, men edging in about the two as if they expected some open fight. “Dumaroy, your rider roughed up a Norbie and he got just what he deserved in return. You know what trouble with the natives can lead to – or do you want to have a knife feud sworn on you?”
“Norbies!” Dumaroy did not quite spit, but his disgust was made eloquently plain. “We don’t nurse Norbies on my spread. And we don’t take kindly to half-broke kids settin’ up to tell us how to act. Maybe you goat-lovers up here like to play finger-wriggle with the big horns – We don’t, and we don’t trust ‘em either –”
“A knife feud –”
Dumaroy interrupted. “So they swear a knife feud. And how long will that last if my boys clean out their camps and teach ‘em a good lesson? Those goats run fast enough when you show your teeth at ‘em. They sure have the finger-sign on you up here –”
Quade’s hand shot out, buried fingers in the frawn fabric that strained across the other’s wide chest.
“Dumaroy –” He still spoke quietly. “Up here we hold to the law. We don’t follow Mountain Butcher tricks. If the Peak country needs a little visit from the Peace Officers, be sure it’s going to get just that!”
“Better change your rods to blast charges if you ride on another man’s range to snoop.” Dumaroy twisted out of the other’s hold with a roll of his thick shoulders.
“We tend to our own business and we don’t take to meddlers from up here. If you don’t want to have your pet goats tickled up some, give them the sign to keep away from our ranges. And they’d better not trail any loose stock with ‘em either! And, if I were you, Quade, I’d speak loud and clear to that kid of yours. When Norbies get excited, they don’t always look too close at a man’s face before they plant an arrow in his middle. I’m serving notice here and now” – his glance swept from Quade to the other men about him – “the Peaks aren’t goin’ to be ruled from the Basin. If you don’t like our ways – stay out! You don’t know what’s goin’ on back in the hills. These tame goats who ride herd around here aren’t like the high-top clans. And maybe the tame ones will learn a few lessons from the wild ones. Been a lot of herd losses in the last five months-and that Nitra chief, old Muccag, he’s been makin’ drum-magic in the mountains. I say somethin’ bigger than a tribe war is cookin’. And we ain’t goin’ to have goats camped on our ranges when the arrow is passed! If you’ve any sense, the rest of you, you’d think that way too.”
Storm was puzzled. This had begun as a personal quarrel between Quade and Dumaroy. Now the latter was attempting to turn the encounter into an argument against the natives. It was almost as strange as Bister’s early actions. He sensed an undercurrent that spelled danger.
5
The Terran was so intrigued by that problem that he did not see Quade turn until he was aware, suddenly, that the Basin settler was staring at him. Those blue eyes were searching, oddly demanding, and there was a shadow of something that might have been recognition in them. Of course that was impossible. To his knowledge he and Quade had never met. But Arzoran was coming toward him and Storm stepped back, confident that outside in the half-light of the street the other could not find him unless he willed it.
But Storm did not move so fast that a startled cry of warning did not reach him. Had it not been for that call and perhaps the fact that his attacker was overeager, the Terran might have gone down with a Norbie long-knife driven home between his shoulders, to cough out his life in the dusty roadway. But the ex-Commando had lived long enough under constant danger so that once more his reflexes took over, and he dived to the right, bringing up against the wall of a building, as someone rushed past him. That half-seen figure flashed into the obscuring dark of an alleyway, but the light reflected from a naked blade as he went.
“Did he get you?”
Storm swung around, his hand on his own knife hilt. The light from the Gatherin’ showed him Brad Quade standing there.