“The same way we know how many you’ve got,” Roper said. Tory Benton was edging off to one side. There was a gnawing tension in him, a kind of driving eagerness to prove himself. “You told ‘em to go, Rog,” he said suddenly. “Let’s make ‘em!”
Roger Balch was uncertain. The mention of his father having a talk with me disturbed him. Arrogant he might be, and troublehunting he might be, but none of the trouble he hunted was with his father.
What might have happened I didn’t know. My own pistol was resting easy in its holster and my rifle was in its scabbard. I was dividing my attention between Tory Benton and Roger, when suddenly Ingerman spoke. “Hold it up. Here comes Balch.”
My eyes never left Benton, but I could hear horses approaching … more than one.
Balch rode up, two riders with him. “Pa? This man says you and him had an understanding. That he can gather cattle.”
Balch glanced at me. “What else did he tell you?”
“Nothin’ else.”
Balch reined his horse around. “Gather your cattle,” he said to me, “but don’t mess around. I don’t want my stuff all spooked.” “Thanks,” I said, and rode right past Benton.
“Another time,” he said.
“Anytime,” I replied.
The wind was picking up and turning cool. We rode on, found some Stirrup-Iron stock and began working the mesquite to round out the cattle. We scattered, working carefully through a couple of square miles of rough, broken country. We saw many Balch and Saddler cattle, of course, but by nightfall we had thirty-seven head of Spur and nine of Stirrup-Iron. We bunched them in a canyon and built us a fire. By that time it was downright cold, a real Texas norther blowing.
For three days of cold, miserable weather we worked that corner of the range, collars turned up, bandanas over our faces except for Joe, whose hat had no chin strap. He tied his bandana over his hat to keep it from blowing away. There was a good bit of mesquite wood in that canyon, and toward each nightfall we’d gather more to keep the fire going. Long ago somebody had grubbed out nearly an acre, probably figuring on building a house, and the roots lay piled nearby.
On the third day, Balch came riding with Ingerman. He looked over our cattle.
“I’m going to cut them,” he said.
I was standing at the fire, warming my hands. “Have at it,” I said. He needed little time to scan that herd. He rode through it several times and around it, then came up to the fire. “There’s coffee,” I said. “We’re running short of grub.”
“Send you some?” he offered.
“No, we’ve about got it. We’ll drive ‘em out come daylight.”
“You made you a good gather.” He glanced up at me. “No young stuff.” “No.” I was squatting by the fire. “Balch, I’m going to take a few days off and do some snooping around, southeast of here.”
“You’ll lose your hair. I lost a rider down thataway maybe a year back … a good man, too. Feller named Tom Witt. Rode off there, huntin’ strays, he said. I never seen him again but his horse showed up, blood all over the saddle. It rained about then and we found no trail.”
“Balch,” I said, “you’ve got you some gunhands. Ingerman is good … one of the best … but somebody needs to ride herd on Benton.” “Rog will do it.”
I took a swallow of coffee and made no comment. He looked at me as if expecting something, but I’d nothing to say. “You lay off, Talon. Just lay off. Benton’s a good boy even if he is a little anxious.”
The dregs of my coffee I tossed on the ground. Then I stood up. “Well, he carries a gun. When a man straps one on, he accepts responsibility for his actions. All I want you to understand is that his trouble is Benton trouble, and it need not be Balch trouble.”
“He rides for me.”
“Then put a rein on him,” I said, a little more sharply. “If you hadn’t come right then, somebody would be dead by now. Maybe several somebodies. You’ve got a son, and a man carries a lot of pride in a son.” “Rog can take care of himself.” Balch looked up at me. “Don’t tangle with him, Talon. He’ll tear you apart. He’s small, but he’s fast and he’s strong.” “All right,” I said.
He got to his feet and mounted up. Then he turned, started to say something, and rode away. He was a hard man, a very hard man, but a lonely one. He was a man who believed the world had built a wall around him, and he was eternally battering at it to make breaches, never understanding that the wall was of his own building.
We moved our cattle out, come daybreak, having close to two hundred head, mostly Spur. It was spitting cold rain when we came up to the high ground. It looked level as a floor, but I knew it wasn’t, for there were canyons cut into the earth, some of them two hundred feet deep. There would be cattle in some of them.
Hinge was no fool. “Talon, you an’ Fuentes work the nearest canyons, start ‘em downcountry, or if there’s a way, bring ‘em here. Ben an’ me will stay by.” And then he added, “Might be an attempt to stampede the stock, so we want to be on hand.”
It was something I had not considered, but Roger Balch or Tory Benton might do just that. Purely as an annoyance, if nothing else. We rode out over the plain until the nearest canyon split the earth wide open ahead of us. There was no warning. We were riding and suddenly there it was—a crack several hundred yards across. In the bottom there was green grass, some mesquite, even a cottonwood or two. And there were cattle. Scouting the rim, we found a steep slide that stock had been using. With my horse almost on his haunches, we slid down and moved toward the cattle. There was Indian writing on some of the rocks, and I was wishing for time to look around. Fuentes glanced at the writing, then at me. “Old,” he said. “Very old.”
“You read that stuff?”
He shrugged. “A little.” He glanced at me. “My grandmother was Comanche, but this was not their writing. It is older, much older.” He spotted a big Stirrup-Iron steer and started him moving. The steer didn’t want to go, putting his head down at me. He had forward-pointing horns, looking sharp as needles, but I rode right at him, and after a moment he broke and turned away, switching his tail in irritation. There was a nice little pocket of our stuff here, and by the time we’d come out at the canyon mouth some three miles below, we had thirty-odd head, mostly big stuff, well-fleshed. We opened out on a flat scattered with mesquite. There were a few cattle, and with Fuentes holding and moving what we had, I rode off to check the brands. This was Balch and Saddler stuff, with a few of the major’s. I cut out a four-year-old and started it toward the herd, my horse working nicely. It was a good cutting horse with a lot of cow savvy, which made the job easier. Riding that horse, the most I had to do was sit up there and look proud. Yet I didn’t like it. We were now a good five miles from Hinge and Roper, and we should be working together. Pushing a few head, I rejoined our bunch. “You know how to get up there?” I asked.
He pointed toward what looked like a long unbroken wall of the mesa. “See that white point of rock? Back of that. It’s an easy way up.” We started the bunch, and while he kept them moving, I rode wide, checking on brands, finding none of our stock. Suddenly, half-hidden by a clump of mes-quite, I came on a small fire. A thin trail of smoke was lifting but the coals were black, only a few charred ends showing a thin tracery of glowing red. Nearby, the earth was torn up and I knew the signs. Somebody had thrown and branded a steer. There was a spattering of blood from the castration, and the earth had been chewed up by kicking hoofs.
I was turning away from the fire when I glimpsed something else—a place where a rifle with two prongs on its butt plate had been standing, tipped against a fork of a mesquite.
Tony was not far off, and I gave him a call. He cantered over. I showed him what there was, including the mark left by the rifle. “I want to see that brand, Tony,” I told him.
He nodded, and we left the herd standing while we rode swiftly around, checking every brand for a fresh one. No such brand appeared. Tony reined in alongside me. Taking off his sombrero, he shook the weight of water from it. “This one is smart, Milo. He drove it away … maybe miles from where it was branded.” I’d been thinking the same thing, and had been watching for tracks, but saw none.