“Just wait a minute,” I said to her. “I’ll get my horse.” “You don’t need to bother,” Benton said. “I was just telling the lady. I am taking her home.”
“Sorry,” I smiled. “I bought the box, don’t you remember?”
“I remember, but that was inside. We were inside then. This here’s different.”
“Is it?”
There was a faint stir in the shadows nearby. My friends or his? Or bystanders?
“You got to go through me to take her,” Benton said belligerently.
“Of course,” I said, and knocked him down.
He wasn’t ready for it. He wasn’t ready for that at all. He might have been trying to pick a fight, or maybe just running a bluff, but I’d long ago discovered that waiting on the other man could get you hurt. My hand had been up, sort of adjusting my tie, so I just took a short step to the left and forward and threw my right from where it was. The distance was short. He had no chance to react. He hit the ground hard. “Better get up in the saddle, Lisa. I’d help you but I’d rather not turn my back.”
Benton sat up slowly, shaking his head. It took a moment for him to realize what had happened to him. Then he got up quickly, staggered a little, still feeling the effects of the blow.
“I’ll kill you for that!” he said hoarsely.
“Please don’t try. If you go for a gun, I’ll beat you to it, and if you shoot, I’ll shoot straighter.”
“Does that go for me, too?” It was Ingerman.
“If you ask anybody from the Roost to the Hole, Ingerman, they’ll tell you I’m always ready.”
He had been poised and ready, but now there was a sudden stillness in him. From Robber’s Roost to the Hole-in-the-Wall, Brown’s Hole or Jackson’s Hole … all hideouts on the Outlaw Trail. Not many here knew what I had said, but Ingerman did, and suddenly he was wary … Who was I?
Yet there was still a need to keep him from losing face. “We’ve nothing to fight about, Ingerman. Maybe the time will come, but not here, not about this.”
Ingerman was no crazy, wild-eyed kid with a gun. He was ice-cold. He was a money fighter, and there was no money in this. And from the way I spoke, I was trouble. Nobody had told him to kill me … not so far. “Just wanted to know where we stood,” he said quietly. “Don’t push your luck.” “I’m a careful man, Ingerman. Tory, here, was about to get himself hurt. I was trying to keep him from it.”
There was a crowd around now, and two of them were Danny Rolf and Fuentes. Just the other side of Ingerman was Ben Roper.
“Mount up, Talon,” he said. “We’re all goin’ home.” Ingerman heard the voice behind him, and he knew Ben Roper by sight and instinct. He turned away, and Tory Benton followed.
9
The night was cool and clear, there were many stars, and the wind whispered in the sagebrush. We started riding, and I had no idea where we were going. At first we did not talk. Behind us Ben Roper, Fuentes and Danny Rolf were riding, and I wished to listen. Nor did Lisa wish to talk, so we rode to the soft sound of our horses’ hoofs, the creak of our saddles and the occasional jingle of a spur.
When we had several miles behind us, I left Lisa for a moment and rode back to the others. “This may be a long ride. No use for you boys to follow on.” “Who is she, Milo?” Ben asked.
“She hasn’t told me. She came alone, and I somehow don’t think her people knew she was gone … I don’t understand the situation.” We were talking low, and Lisa, some distance off, could not overhear us.
“You watch your step,” Danny warned. “It don’t sound right to me.” When they took off and I rode back to her, we started on without comment. The country was growing increasingly rugged, with many patches of timber and brush that grew thicker as we rode.
“You came a long way,” I commented, at last.
The trail, only a vague one, seldom used, dipped down into a narrow draw that led to a creek bottom sheltered by giant oaks and pecans. At a stream, Lisa drew up to let her horse drink.
“You have come far enough. I want to thank you very much both for riding with me and for buying my box. And I hope there is no trouble with that man.” “There would be trouble anyway. He rides for Balch and Saddler.”
“And you for Stirrup-Iron?”
“Yes.”
Her horse lifted his head, water dripping from his muzzle. My own was drinking also.
“Do not be quick to judge,” she said quietly, “I do not know either Balch or Saddler, but I know they are hard men. Yet I think they are honest men.” I was surprised, yet I said, “I haven’t formed an opinion. Somebody is stealing cattle, however.”
“Yes, I think so. I do not think it is Balch and Saddler, nor do I think it is Stirrup-Iron.”
Again I was surprised. “You mean somebody thinks we are stealing?” “Of course. Did you think you were the only ones who could be suspicious? Be careful, Mr. Talon, be very careful. It is not as simple as you think.” “You are sure I should not ride further with you?”
“No … please don’t. I haven’t far to go.”
Reluctantly, I turned my horse. “Adios, then.” And I rode away. She did not move, and I could still see the dark patch in the silver of the water until I went into the arroyo. When I topped out on the rise, I drew up and thought I heard the pound of hoofs fading away, the hoofs of a running horse. I glanced at the stars. I must be southeast of the ranch, some distance away. Taking a course by the stars I started across country, dipping down into several deep draws and skirting patches of brush and timber. Just as I rounded one patch of brush, maybe three or four acres of it, I saw my horse’s head come up. “Easy, boy!” I said softly. “Easy, now!” I drew up, listening. Something was moving out there, a rustle of hooves in the grass, a vague sound of movement, a rattle of horns. “Easy, boy!” I whispered. At my voice and my hand on its neck, my horse lost some of his tension, and I shucked my Winchester from its scabbard and waited. Somebody out there was moving cattle, and in ranch country honest men do not move cattle by night … not often, anyway.
They were no more than a hundred yards off, but I could not make them out, moving them southeast. I waited, and the sound dwindled. A small bunch, I was sure. Not more than thirty or forty head at most. To move in on them now would just result in getting somebody killed, and that somebody could be me—a thought I viewed with no great pleasure. And the trail would still be here tomorrow. A thought came to me then … Why ride all the way back to the ranch? True, I had my work to do, and there was a lot of it, but if I could find out where those missing cattle were going, it would make up for the time lost. So when I started on I was hunting a camp, and I found it, a small place alongside a stream, probably the same stream, or a branch of it, where I’d left Lisa. The place was thick with huge old oaks and pecans, and fortunately the night was cool without being cold. I’d no blanket roll with me, nothing but my slicker and a saddle blanket. But I found a place with plenty of leaves and I bunched up more of them, then spread my slicker on the leaves and put the saddle blanket over my shoulders.
I put my Winchester down beside me, muzzle toward my feet, and my six-shooter I took from its holster and laid it at hand. I made no fire, as I had no idea how far off those cattle had been taken or whether the rider might come back by. It was a cold, miserable night. But there had been many of those, and it was not the first time I’d slept out with nothing but a slicker and a saddle blanket … Nor would it be the last.
Daybreak came and I got up.
Usually I carried some coffee in my saddlebags but I had none now. Going to a box supper a man usually figures there’ll be coffee, and there had been. A lot of good it did me now!
At the creek I washed my face in cold water and dried it on my shirt. Then I put the shirt back on, took a long drink from the stream, watered my horse, and mounted up.