24
We rode steadily north. It was a good thirty-five miles to the Timberly ranch and Ann’s horse was fresh. My dun had done some traveling but I had the grulla for good measure. So we set a good pace, moving right away from there. Meantime, I’d had a sudden hunch, and one that might be good for nothing at all. Ann was quiet. She was undoubtedly worn to a frazzle, with the riding and the worry over what was to become of her. Now she was just going through the motions. I knew she wanted to be home and resting … So did I. What worried me was that it had been too easy. We just didn’t stand to have that much good luck. If Twin Baker came up on me, I had to win the fight that was sure to take place. I had to win. Because otherwise, Ann would be right back where she had been.
Something else worried me, too. He had some kind of a tie-up with the Kiowas, or a renegade bunch of them, and if they spotted us they’d be scalp-hunting. That hunch I had was no more than a hunch, but suddenly I’d begun wondering about that man who had been with Balch and Saddler the first day I’d seen them—the man who had looked familiar, but whom I couldn’t find a name for. Since then, I had seen him nowhere around, and he had not been at the box supper. Could be, I’d remembered him from a glance or two when ma and us had first came up on those rustlers. So he might be Twin Baker. The chance was a slim one, and I couldn’t see that it helped any. So maybe I had seen him? What then?
When Ann and I had ten miles behind us, I spotted a waterhole off to one side. It was likely just a place that had gathered rainwater from the latest storm, but it was a help. We walked the horses over and let them drink. Meanwhile, I switched saddles from the dun to the grulla. If I was going to have to run, I wanted it to be on a fresh horse, although as Ma had said, the dun would go until it dropped.
“Milo?” Ann’s voice was tremulous. “Do you think he will follow us?” There was no sense in lying to her, and I’d never been given to protecting womenfolks from shocks. Mostly, they stand up to them as well as a man, and it’s better for them to be prepared for what may come. “He’s got to, Ann. He’s got four years of stealing behind him, and a rope if he’s caught. But mostly he doesn’t want to spoil everything now he’s so close to having what he wants. He’s got to find us and kill us, but he doesn’t have much more time. I just hope he doesn’t get back and find out what’s happened until we’re safe out of the country.”
“Will Lisa tell him?”
“I don’t know. She may run, like I advised, but the chances are she won’t. She’s got no place to go, and usually a person will accept a known risk rather than blaze off into the unknown. She thinks she knows him, and she trusts in that.” With the horses watered, we started on. Now we let them walk, saving them for a run if need be, and letting them get used to having a bellyful of water. I glanced at the sun … Time was running out. But if darkness came, we might not be found. Not that I had much faith in that.
Where were the cattle? Twin Baker had driven them off to the south, somewhere, and when he made such a drive he was usually, Lisa said, gone all day. Cattle would move at two and a half to three miles an hour, and he would ride back a little faster. Figure fifteen miles, and maybe less. My eyes never stopped, yet I could see nothing but the wide plain with scattered yucca or bear grass, occasional buffalo bones and no sign at all of Indians. Ann came up alongside me. “Milo? Who are you?”
The question amused me. “Me? Here I am. This is all I am. I’m a sort of drifting cowboy, moving from ranch to ranch, sometimes riding shotgun on stages … Anything to make a living.”
“Have you no ambition? Is that all you wish to be?” “Well, I sort of think about a ranch of my own, time to time. Not cattle so much as horses.”
“Father says you are a gentleman.”
“Well, I hope I am. I never gave much thought to it.” “He says you have breeding, that no matter what you seem to be, you came from a cultured background.”
“Don’t reckon that counts for much out here. When a man rides out in the morning, all they expect of him is that he can do his job—that he can ride, rope a little, and handle stock. A longhorn doesn’t care much whether you know who Beethoven was, or Dante.”
“But you know who they were.”
“My brother sets store by such things, and so did Pa. Maybe I take more after Ma. She knew cattle, horses and men. She could read men like a gambler reads cards, and she could shoot.”
Ann was looking at me.
“Ma sang some. Didn’t have much of a voice, but she knew a lot of old Scotch, English and Irish songs she’d learned back in those Tennessee hills she came from. When she was a girl she had no more than eight to ten books. She grew up on Pilgrim’s Progress and the writings of Sir Walter Scott. She rocked me to sleep singing ‘Old Bangum and the Boar,’ ‘Bold Robin Hood’ and ‘Brennan on the Moor.’ And Pa, he could speak three or four tongues. He used to quote Shakespeare, Moliere and Racine at us sometimes. He told us wild tales about the first Talon to land in America. He was a pirate or something and sailed clean around the world to get here.”
I paused. “A mighty hard old man, by all accounts. Had a claw for a right hand, a claw he’d made himself after he lost his hand. Came to Canada and built himself a home up on the mountains in the Gaspe … A place where he could see a wide stretch of sea … Lived his life out there, they say.” “Milo?” She was looking at something.
I had seen them, too. Riders … three of them, all carrying rifles. “Ride easy now,” I warned her. “Sometimes talk is enough … or a bit of tobacco.”
“I’ve never seen you smoke!”
“I don’t, but Indians do. So I carry a sack of tobacco, just for luck. Use it on insect bites sometimes.” We rode slowly forward, and then suddenly Ann said, “Milo … the man on the gray horse! That’s Tom Blake, one of our men!” She stood in her stirrups, waving.
Instantly, they started toward us. They were wary of me, although two of them had ridden to the box supper with the major and Ann. When we met, Blake wanted to know where Ann had been. After I had explained, Blake looked at me carefully. “You know this Twin Baker?”
“Only by name and what Lisa told me. But I’ve an idea he’s been around, under one name or another.” Then we rode toward the major’s ranch. When we rode up to the ranch-house door, the major came out. When he saw Ann, he rushed toward her. “Ann? Are you all right?”
“Yes. I am. Thanks to Milo.” Briefly, she explained. The major’s face stiffened. “We’ll go get him,” he said flatly. “Tom, get the boys together. Full marching order, three days rations. We’ll get him, and we’ll get those cattle, every damned one of them!”
He turned to one of the other men who had come up. “Will, ride over to Balch.
Tell him what’s happened, and tell him to come on over here with some men.” “I’ll ride back to my outfit,” I said. “Remember, if that girl’s there … she’s done no harm. But we’d better move fast, because Twin Baker will.” Swinging my horse around, I lit out for the Stirrup-Iron, riding the grulla and leading the dun. They were all there in the ranch yard when I rode in. Henry Rossiter, Barby Ann, Fuentes, Roper and Harley. From the look of them, I knew something was wrong.
“You got back just in time!” Rossiter said. “We’re ridin’ after Balch! Last night they run off the whole damn’ herd! More than a thousand head of cattle! Gone, just like that!”
“Balch had nothing to do with it.” I rode between Rossiter and the others. “When was the last time you saw Twin Baker?”
Had I struck him across the face with my hat, the shock could have been no greater. He took half a step forward, his features drawn and old, staring up at me from blind, groping eyes.