“Ben, we’ve got to bait the rustler. He’s hunting young stuff. Let’s leave some where he can get it, then follow him.”
“Maybe,” Roper was doubtful. “There’s just you, me and Fuentes now, and work enough for six—even if it doesn’t come to a shootin’ war.” “Barby Ann will make a hand. I mean, she’ll pitch in and help, but we’ll need more.”
With our horses saddled, we went back to the bunkhouse. Joe had been moved to the ranch house, where Barby Ann could see to him when we boys were out. I fed a couple of cartridges into my Winchester and carried it to the saddle. I slung the saddlebags, then put the Winchester into the boot. We were stalling. All of us were stalling. There was work to do and we knew it, but we were just sort of waiting around for something to happen. Finally, I straddled my bronc and rode out where the cattle were. Fuentes lifted a hand and turned back to the ranch house for breakfast. There were too many cattle for one rider, but they were busy with the fresh graze for the time. I rode around a mite, tucking in a few strays that were taking a notion to wander. Then I rode up on the high ground for a look around. Far off to the west, there was just a blue haze hiding the cap-rock, and from up high I could see the dim shape of some low hills against the horizon … maybe twenty miles away.
There was a thin green line where Lacy Creek was, and where Ol’ Brindle seemed to hang out. It was better country for sheep than for cattle, and coming from mountain country I was less prejudiced against sheep than most cowmen. Bert Harley should be back. Yet I saw no sign of movement out there. It was a vast sweep of country. Far to the east was a line that might be a branch of the Concho … I didn’t know this country anywhere near well enough, and had to guess at what I didn’t know … always a dangerous thing. Ben rode up to me. “Rossiter figures we should start branding when we can. He wants to get the herd out of the country before they’re scattered to hell an’ gone.”
“All right.” I pointed toward a shoulder of hill on the southern skyline.
“What’s that?”
“Flattop, I reckon. Air’s clear this morning.”
“You ever been to Harley’s place?”
“No. As a matter of fact, Bert’s never invited no visitors. Stays to hisself. You know him. He’s a good man but he’s got kind of an ingrown disposition and he just shuts people out. I don’t even rightly know where his place is. This here country’s only had people in it four or five years, you know, and nobody knows it well.”
Ben continued. “Marcy explored through here, but I don’t rightly know where he went. North of here, I expect. Folks have been kind of moving gradually thisaway, but many have been killed by Indians and some just gave up after a couple of dry years and moved on.”
He stopped to scan the horizon. “There’s usually said to be six ranches in the basin, as we call it. That’s the major’s outfit, Balch and Saddler, Spur, Stirrup-Iron, Bert Harley’s place, and off to the southeast there’s a Mexican outfit … Lopez. We never see much of them. They mind their own affairs and most of their graze is south of them.”
Ben paused. “I never seen Lopez. He was here before any of us, but from all I hear, he’s a good man.”
He drifted off, cutting a couple of bunch-quitters back into the herd. Branding that lot of cattle was a big job for three men, even if Barby Ann helped. It would be slow, and it would mean a lot of work. For myself, while never shirking any job, I’d no wish to tackle that one. Bert Harley showed up about the middle of the morning, and I headed off for the ranch. Fuentes was there. He’d been up to the line-cabin. “Amigo? That shirt you wore when you were shot at? The red-checked one?” “What about it?”
“Did you bring it back with you? Back here?”
“As a matter of fact, I washed it out one day and when it was dried, I folded it and left it under the pillow on my bunk. Why do you ask?” “I thought that was what you’d done. Seen it there a time or two … But now it’s gone.”
Well, I looked at him, wondering what he was getting at, and all of a sudden it came to me. “You think Danny borrowed my shirt?” “Look …” he held out a dirty blue shirt that was surely Danny’s. “He was going courting, no? He saw your shirt, figured you’d not care, and swapped his dirty shirt for your clean one, all red and white checked.” Ben Roper had come up, listening. “You think somebody figured he was you?” “Well, I was on a hot trail. I don’t know which horse I was riding that day, but I believe it was a gray. If he wore my shirt and was riding a grulla … at a little distance?”
That was all that was said at the time.
We started the branding at daylight. Fuentes was the best man on a rope, so Ben and I swapped the throwing and branding. It was slow work with just the three of us, but Tony never missed a throw and we worked the day through. It was hot, dusty work, and most of the stuff we were branding was bigger, older and a whole lot meaner than was usual.
It was coming up to noon when Fuentes suddenly called out. “Riders coming!” Ben turned around, glanced toward the trail, then walked to his horse and slid his Winchester from the boot. I just stood waiting. Branding or no, I had my smoker on, expecting trouble.
It was Balch. Ingerman was nowhere in sight, but Vansen and Klaus were with him. Balch drew up close by and looked over at me. “If you’re branding, I want a rep right with you.”
“Fine,” I said, “We’re branding, so get him over here.”
“I’ll leave Vansen,” he said.
“Like hell,” I said. “You’ll leave a cattleman, not a gunman.”
“I’ll leave whoever I damn well please!” Balch said roughly. It was hot and dusty and I was tired. Only a moment before, we’d finished throwing and branding a five-year-old maverick that had given us trouble, and I was in no mood for nonsense.
“Balch, anybody who comes over here had better be a cattleman. And if he is, he’s going to lend a hand when we need him. We haven’t any time for freeloaders. Every head we’ve got in this bunch belongs to Stirrup-Iron or Spur, but your cattleman is free to look ‘em over whenever you like. But I’d rather you’d stay yourself. I want a man who knows cattle and who knows brands.” “You think I don’t?” Vansen said belligerently.
“These are cattle,” I said roughly, “not playing cards or bottles.” His lips tightened, and for a moment I thought he was going to ride me down, but Balch put out a hand to stop him.
“Hunting trouble, Talon?” he asked coolly.
“We’ve had trouble,” I replied shortly. “Benton shot Joe Hinge, or didn’t you know? If there’s to be any riders from your outfit around here, you handle the job yourself or send somebody who is only a cattleman, not a gunman.” Vansen swung down and unfastened his gunbelt. “You said no gunman. All right, my guns are off. Want to take off yours?”
I glanced at Roper. He had a Winchester in his hands. “All right,” I said. I took off my gunbelt and handed it to Fuentes, and Vansen came in swinging. They didn’t call him Knuckles for nothing. He was supposed to be a fistfighter. There’d been bunkhouse talk that he had whipped a lot of men. I don’t know where he found them.
He swung his first punch when my back was half-turned, but I heard his boot grate on gravel as he moved, and threw up an arm. He had swung a right for my face with my right side toward him, and my arm partially blocked his punch. Then I backhanded him with a doubled fist that staggered him. Turning around just as he was getting his feet under him, I beat him to the punch with a left to the face, ducked under a pawing swing and hit him in the belly with a right. His wind went out with a grunt, and I took a step back, nearer Fuentes and my gun, which was slung from his saddle horn within easy reach. “You better take your boy home,” I said to Balch. “He’s no fighter.” Vansen’s breath back, he lunged at me and I stepped in. hitting him with a short right to the chin. He dropped to his knees in the dust, then to his face. “Better pet him a new name, too,” I said. “Better call him Wide-Open Vansen from now on.”