Was there some tie-up between Lisa and whoever was stealing those cattle? I didn’t like to think it, but it could be. And who had shot at me? Someone I knew? Or someone totally unknown to any of us?
Slowly my thoughts sifted the names and faces through the sieve of recollection. But it came up with nothing. I heard a faint stir from the adjoining room, and a shadow loomed in the door. It was Rossiter. “Joe?” His tone was questioning. “It’s Talon,” I said. “Ben just relieved me for coffee.” “Ah!” He walked to the table, putting out a hand, feeling for the corner. “I hear you’ve had some trouble.”
“Nothing I can’t handle,” I replied, with more confidence than I felt. “I’ve been shot at, but he can’t always get away.”
“How about you? He can’t always miss, either.”
“If that happens, there’s always Barnabas,” I said, “and the Sackett boys.”
“Sackett! What have you to do with them?”
“Didn’t you know? Ma was a Sackett. She was a mountain woman, living in Tennessee until Pa found her there.”
“Well, I’ll be damned! I should have guessed it. No,” he was suddenly thoughtful, “I never knew.” He drummed on the table with his fingers as I sipped coffee. “You mean that whole outfit would come if you needed them?” “I reckon. Only we figure each of us can handle what comes our way. It’s only when a man is really outnumbered that the clan gathers … or when one of us is drygulched. Whoever is trying to kill me doesn’t realize what would happen if he did. There’s only one of me, but you get seven or eight Sacketts and Talons in the country and they’ll find whoever did it.”
“If there’s anything to find.”
The doughnuts were good, and so was the coffee, yet Rossiter sat there after eating, obviously with something on his mind. “Have you talked to Barby Ann?” “Now and again,” I said.
“She’s a fine girl … a fine girl. Right now she’s very upset about something, but she won’t tell me what it is.” He turned his face toward me. “Is it something between you two?”
“No, sir, it isn’t.”
“You could do worse. She’s a fine girl, Talon, and there isn’t a better cook or baker in the country. She’ll make some man a fine wife.” Now I was getting uneasy. I didn’t like the sound of what he seemed to be leading up to. I grabbed the last doughnut and took a bite, then a swallow of coffee. I got up hastily. “Ben’s waitin’ out there. I’d better go.” “All right,” he sounded irritated, “but you think on it.” I took another swallow of coffee and went out the door, but paused a moment on the stoop to eat the last of that doughnut. As I stood there in the dark I heard Barby Ann’s voice, and it sounded just like her face had looked that other day. “Pa? What you trying to do? Marry me off to that no-good cowhand?”
“Nothing of the kind. I thought—“
“Well, don’t think about it. When I marry I’ll choose my own man. In fact, you might as well know. I already have.”
“Have what? Married?”
“No, pa. I’ve picked my man. I’m going to marry Roger Balch.” “Roger Balch?” His voice was a shade louder. “I thought his pa was figurin’ on him marrying that Timberly girl.”
Her voice was cold, a shade ugly. “That will change, Pa. Believe me, that will change.”
“Roger Balch?” His tone was thoughtful. “Why, Barby, I hadn’t given that a thought. Roger Balch … of all things!”
Back at the herd I watched Ben Roper ride off with my thanks, and then I started around the bunch. Most of them were laying down, settled down to rest until their midnight stretch.
Yet my thoughts kept going back to that talk I’d overheard. Not that anybody had said anything wrong, but it was the tone I detected … or thought I detected … in their voices.
I’d have sworn that Roger Balch had told her he was through with her, and that was the reason she had wanted me to kill him. Now she had changed her mind and was going to marry him.
Now just what did that mean?
Riding night-herd when things are quiet is a mighty easy time for thinking. It’s almighty still out there and the cows are companions enough. You just set your horse, letting the natural habit of your mind listen and notice anything wrong with the herd, and then your thoughts go where they will. Barby Ann, mad clean through, wanted me to kill Roger Balch. Yet now she told her father she was going to marry him?
A cover-up? Or a change of mind? Or … and the thought chilled me … had she thought of death for somebody else?
Like Ann Timberly …
17
Joe Hinge sat his horse and looked at us. There were Ben Roper, Tony Fuentes and me, all mounted and ready to go, and it not daybreak yet. “Take it easy,” Joe advised. “Don’t run no cattle. Roust out what you find of Stirrup-Iron or Spur and get them back here. Steer clear of Tory Benton or any of that outfit. He’ll be on the prod, maybe. Talon thinks they’ll lay off, and we got to hope he’s right, but don’t you boys scatter out more’n you have to. Three quick shots, and you come together.”
“Where?”
“Right where we first met up with Talon the first time. Right there. But if you have to, hole up and make a fight of it. You boys are all grown men, and you know what you have to do. Do it easy as you can an’ get out. We don’t want trouble if we can help it. First place, it don’t make no sense. Second place, we’re outnumbered and outgunned.”
He paused. “Not that we can’t fight. We can. I rode with Jeb Stuart. Fuentes grew up fightin’ and Ben, here, he was in the Sixth Cavalry. If need be, we can do our share.”
I glanced at Ben. “Sixth Cavalry? Ever run into a long-geared Tennessee boy named William Tell Sackett?”
He laughed. “I should smile. Right out of the mountains and didn’t know from nothin’, but he sure could shoot!”
“He’s a cousin of mine.”
Ben Roper glanced at me. “I’ll be damned. You’re cousin to Tell? I figured Talon for a French name.”
“It is. My ma was a Sackett.”
We rode out, not talking. We had a few miles to go before we reached the Balch and Saddler range, but their riders could be anywhere about and we hoped to see them first.
It was short-grass country, with scattered patches of mesquite. We spotted a few cattle, most of them Balch and Saddler. We were coming up a cliff from the lowlands when we saw three riders coming toward us. One of them was Ingerman, another was Tory Benton, and the third was Roger Balch. “Ride easy now!” Hinge warned. Then he added, angrily, “Just our luck to have that young hothead along!”
We pulled up and let them come to us. I reined my horse off to one side a mite, and Fuentes did the same. Roger was in the lead. “Where the hell d’ you think you’re goin’?” he demanded.
“Roundin’ up cattle,” Hinge said. “We’re after anything with a Stirrup-Iron or a Spur brand.”
“You were told there were none around!” Roger said. “Now back off and get out of here!”
“A few weeks back,” I said quietly, “I saw Stirrup-Iron and Spur cattle up yonder. Those are the ones we want, and nothing else.” He turned on me. “You’re Talon, I take it. I’ve heard of you.” He looked again.
“At the social! You were the one bought the box!”
“I’ve been around,” I said.
“All right,” he said, “now move. Or we move you!” “If I were you,” I said quietly, “I’d talk to my pa first. Last time I talked to him, he didn’t have any objections to us rounding up cattle.” “Get off!” he said. Then the gist of my comment seemed to reach him. “You talked to Pa? When was this?”
“Few days back, over east of here. Seemed like we understood each other. Had a right friendly talk. Somehow I don’t think he’d like trouble where there need be none.”
Tory Benton broke in, roughly. “Hell, Rog, let me take him! What’s all this talk for? I thought you said we were going to run them off?” Hinge spoke quietly. “There’s no need for trouble here. All we want is to drive our cattle off your range, just as your boys will want to drive some of yours off ours.”
“Unless you want to make an even swap,” Roper suggested. “You keep what you’ve got of ours, and we’ll keep what we’ve got of yours.” “The hell with that!” Roger declared. “How do we know how many head you’ve got?”