There was a flat rock near a mesquite bush. I lowered myself down, stretching my stiff leg out carefully. From that point I could see the cabin. Everything I wanted was inside, yet I did not want to die to get it. Fuentes should be there with a fire going. But suppose he was not, and somebody else was? Suppose the unknown marksman who had twice tried to kill me was down there instead?
He might believe me dead, but he might also realize that if I was not dead, and needed a horse, that I would surely come to this place where horses awaited me. I had struggled too much, suffered too much to want to walk through that door into a belly full of lead.
For a long time I watched the windows. At this distance I could see little, but hoped I would catch movement past them. I saw nothing. Struggling to my feet, I hobbled slowly down the path to the cabin. Approaching it, I slipped the thong from the hammer, leaned my staff against the building and drew my gun.
With my left hand, ever so gently, I lifted the door latch. With the toe of my stiff leg, I pushed the door open. “Milo!”
Swiftly, I turned. The stable! I’d forgotten! My pistol came around, the hammer eared back.
The only thing that saved her was my years of training-never to shoot unless I could see what I was shooting. It was Ann Timberly! Cold sweat broke out on my forehead, and slowly I lowered my gun muzzle, easing the hammer down ever so gently.
“What in God’s world are you doing here?” I demanded, irritated by the fact that I might easily have shot her.
“I found your horse, and I remembered your saddle. I tried to backtrack him, but the rain washed out the trail, so I brought him here. I was just unsaddling when I saw you.”
She helped me inside and I slumped down on my bunk, bolstering my gun. She stared at me, shaking her head. “What in the world has happened to you?” Explanations could be long, I made it short. “Somebody shot me. I fell and got this,” I touched my head. “And that was yesterday… I think.” “I’ll get a fire started,” she turned quickly to the fireplace. “You need some food.”
“Get my rifle first.”
“What?”
“It’s still on my horse, isn’t it? My rifle and the saddlebags. Somebody wants to kill me, Ann, and I want that rifle.”
She wasted no time talking, and in a moment she was back with the rifle and the saddlebags. I had another fifty rounds of ammunition in that saddlebag. She was quick and she was efficient. Rich girl she might be, but she’d grown up on a ranch and she knew what to do. In no time she had a fire going, coffee on, and was telling me to get out of my wet clothes. “And into what?” I asked wryly.
She whipped the blanket from Fuentes’ bed. “Into that,” she said, “and if you’re bashful, I’m not.”
It was a problem getting out of my shirt, which was soaked and clung to my back.
She helped me.
“Well,” she said critically, “you’ve got nice shoulders, anyway. Where’d you pick up all that muscle?”
“Wrestling steers, swinging an ax,” I said. “I’ve worked.” Fortunately, she could get a look at my hip just by me loosening my belt and turning down the edge of my pants, which were stiff with blood. It was a nasty-looking wound, an ugly big bruise around the top of my hipbone and a gash you could lay a finger in.
“You’d better start for home,” I said, as she dressed the wound. “The major will be worried.”
“He stopped worrying about me a long time ago. I can ride a horse and shoot, and he stopped arguing with me when I was sixteen.” I didn’t like her being there, nonetheless. Folks will talk, given provocation or none, and a woman’s good name was of first importance. Argument did no good at all. She was a stubborn girl, with her own notions about things, and I could see the major must have his problems. Still, she could ride and she could shoot, and it was a big, wide-open country where a woman was safer than almost anything else a body could mention.
Wrapped in Fuentes’ blanket, I relaxed on the bed while she fixed us a meal with what she could find. Meanwhile, we talked about the situation. “There’s nobody I can think of who’d want to shoot me,” I commented, “unless it was whoever was driving those stolen cattle. I figure he must’ve seen me on his trail.”
“Possibly,” she agreed, but she did not seem too sure.
“Do you think Balch and Saddler are stealing cattle?”
She hesitated over that, then shook her head. “I don’t know. Neither does Pa. We’ve lost … we’ve lost a good many but not like you have. Balch claims they’ve lost young stuff, too. It doesn’t make any kind of sense.” She turned to look at me. “There’s been talk about you, Milo. I thought I’d better tell you. People are saying no cowboy has the kind of money you spent at the box social.”
I shrugged. “I saved some money ridin’ shotgun for Wells Fargo, then I hit a pocket of stuff placer-mining up in northern New Mexico.” “Most cowhands would have spent it.”
I shrugged. “Maybe. I’m not much of a drinker. I carry a gun, and a good many folks know I’ve ridden shotgun. Besides, I’ve covered the Outlaw Trail, Canada to Mexico. A man riding that kind of country has to be careful.” “Is this what you’re going to do the rest of your life? Just ride up and down the country?”
Smiling, I shook my head. “No, one day I’ll settle down to ranching. Maybe I will. Barnabas says I was born for it, liking stock and the country and all.” I paused. “You’d like Barnabas,” I added, “he’s traveled in Europe, and he reads. He thinks a lot, too. He’s planning to import some breeding stock from Europe, mix it with longhorns. The way he figures, the day of the longhorn is short. They’ll do well in rough graze like this, but they walk too much and don’t carry enough beef. Although,” I added, “I’ve seen some mighty fat longhorns, given the graze.”
It was mighty pleasant, sitting there talking to Ann, but somewhere along the line I just dozed off. I’d lost blood, I was feeling sick, and I was tired from my struggle through the mud while ailing.
When I awakened again, the cabin was still, and only coals lay on the hearth. Ann was asleep on Fuentes’ bed. Hearing a stir, I raised up on an elbow and saw Fuentes sitting up. He grinned at me and put a finger to his lips. He’d been sleeping on the floor with his blanket-roll gear. He went out, and I heard him washing beside the door. He automatically threw the water from the pan where it would usually help settle dust, although on this morning after the rain there was none. Then he came in. And moving silently, except for the tinkle of those big Spanish spurs he wore, he made coffee, stirred up the fire and added fuel.
Favoring my bad hip, I sat up.
Ann had put my rifle on the bed beside me—and my six-shooter, too. She’d forgotten to bar the door, and that was probably because she hadn’t intended going to sleep.
She awakened suddenly. She stared at Fuentes and, when he bowed slightly, she smiled. “I must have fallen asleep. I am ashamed. Anyone could have come in.” “You were tired, senorita. It was best that you slept. But the major will be worried.”
“Yes,” she admitted, “this is the first time I’ve been gone all night.” She looked delightful, and in a matter of minutes she had washed, done something to her hair, and had taken over the cooking from Fuentes. “I rode to talk to Hinge,” he explained. “When I told him you were missing, he was very angry. He was worried, too. I had ridden to look, but your tracks were gone under the rain.”
We ate and talked, then Ann was gone. My fever seemed to have disappeared during the night, although I still felt kind of used up. It gave me a cold twinge when I thought of both of us asleep and somebody out there who wanted to kill me. Yet Ann could not long have been asleep before Fuentes rode in. Joe Hinge rode in. “Get well,” he told me after we’d talked some. “We’re goin’ to need you. We got the west range to ride, an’ that’s where Balch says we can’t go.”
“Give me three, four days,” I said.
“Take you longer than that,” he said, “you surely look peaked.” He changed the subject abruptly. “Both times you were shot at you were southeast of here?” At my nod, he took off his hat and scratched his head thoughtfully. “You know, some things a body can figure. There’s no way it could be Balch or Saddler … Roger, maybe. Tory Benton was riding away off north of here, and so was Knuckles Vansen.”