Balch’s face was stiff with anger. For a moment, I thought he was going to get off his horse and tackle me himself, and that would be no bargain. Whatever else Balch was, my guess was that he was a fighter … And I’d already been warned that he was better with a gun than any of his would-be gunmen. “I’ll send a cattleman,” he said coldly.
“You send him, and he’s welcome. We’re working cows here.” I paused. “Another thing … Is Tory Benton still working for you?” “No … he’s not. That shootin’ was his own idea. If he’s still around, that’s his idea, too.”
Taking my gunbelt, I buckled it on. They had turned to go, waiting only for Vanson to crawl into the saddle, but I said, “Balch?” He turned, his eyes still ugly with anger.
“Balch, you’re no damned fool. Don’t let us fly off the handle and do something we’ll both be sorry for. What I said before, I still believe. Somebody is stealing your cattle and ours, and that somebody would like nothing better than to see us in a shooting war. It takes no kind of a brain to pull a trigger, but if we come out of this with anything, it will be because we’re too smart to start shooting.”
He turned his back on me and rode off, but I knew he was shrewd, and what I had said would stay in his mind. As they rode away, Ben Roper turned to look at me and shook his head. “I didn’t know you could fight,” he said. “When you hit him with that right, I thought you’d killed him.”
“Come on,” I said, “let’s brand some cows.”
Nobody else came around, and we worked cattle for the next three days without interruption. It was hard, hot, rough work, but none of us had ever known much else, and we leaned into it to get the job done. As we branded stock they were driven over into a separate little valley nearby, where they could be held and watched over by Harley.
Each morning we were up and away from the ranch house before daybreak. And each night, when we’d packed our supper away, we wasted little time. Mostly we were too tired for playing cards or even talking. The cattle we were handling were rarely calves, but big, raw stuff that had somehow run wild on the range without branding.
Then we took a day off … it was Sunday … and just loafed. Only my loafing was of a different kind. “I’m taking a ride,” I told Barby Ann. She just looked at me. Never, since I’d refused to accept five hundred dollars to kill Roger Balch, had she spoken to me except to reply to a question. Fuentes was there, and Ben Roper.
“There’s work to do, and I know it,” I said, “and I doubt if I’ll be home by daybreak.”
“Where are you going?”
“I’m going to find Danny,” I said.
We were shorthanded and there were cattle to hold, but the thing was eating on me, worrying me. If he was dead, as he probably was, that would be one thing. But suppose he was hurt? Lying out there somewhere, slowly dying? Danny meant nothing to me, except that he was another human being and we rode for the same brand. But I knew the others had been thinking of it also. Throwing the saddle on my own dun, I rode out of there when the sun was high. Topping out on the ridge, I pulled my hat brim down to shield my eyes from the sun, and scanned the country.
There had been rain, and the trail would be wiped out. Yet he had been riding a grulla and wearing my red and white checked shirt. And he had probably been looking for Lisa, who was somewhere south and east … Or so we believed. South and east was Kiowa country, Comanche country, and the land where the Lipans rode. Even the supply wagons from the ranches crossed it only with a heavily-armed escort. And into that country I was riding … alone.
21
I rode alone into a land of infinite distance. Far, far away stretched the horizon, where, the edge of the plains met the sky. Yet having ridden such distances before, I knew there was no edge, no end, but only a farther horizon, a more mysterious distance. There were antelope there, occasional groups of buffalo left from the vast herds that for a few years had covered the land, constantly moving like a vast black sea.
My dun rode with ears pricked toward the distance, for he was as much the vagabond and saddle tramp as I, always looking beyond where he was, always eager for the new trail, the new climb, the new descent. I followed no trail, for the rain had left none. I rode my own way, letting my mind seek out, letting the horse detect. For the dun had been a wild mustang, and they are as keen to scent a trail as any hound, and as wary as any wolf. Somewhere to the south and east, cattle had been taken, and although their tracks were gone, their droppings were not.
More than that, land lies only in certain ways, and a traveling man or a driven herd holds to the possibilities. Rarely, for example, will a man top out on a peak unless looking over the land, and a herd of cattle will never do so. Cattle, like buffalo, seek the easiest route, and are as skillful as any surveyor in finding it.
The herd would go around the hills, over the low passes, down the easy draws. Hence, to a degree, I must follow there. The trouble was these were also the ways the Indian would go until he got within striking range of his goal. Although once in a while an Indian would top out on a ridge to look around the country.
This was a land of mirage, and even as a mirage would occasionally appear to let one see beyond the horizon, man himself could be revealed in the same way. If a man were accustomed to mirages, he could often detect a good deal from them. And none knew them better than the Indians who rode this wild land north of Mexico. The Lopez peaks were off to the southeast, and I kept them there, using them as a guide to hold direction. Right ahead of me was a creek and when I reached it, I rode down into the bottom and stopped under some pecan trees, to listen. There was no wind stirring beyond enough to move the leaves now and again. I could hear the rustle of water, for the creek was running better since the rains. Turning east, I rode along studying for tracks, but drawing up now and again to listen and look around. It was almighty quiet. There were antelope and deer tracks, and some of javelinas, those wild boars that I’d not seen this far north and west before. They might have been there a long time, for this was new country to me.
There were some cow tracks and, sure enough, there was a big hoofprint, fairly recent, made by Ol’ Brindle. I’d learned to distinguish his track from others. Somewhere those stolen cattle had been driven across this creek, of that I was sure. The rain might have wiped out other tracks, but where they went through the mud there’d still be tracks. It was likely that Danny Rolf had crossed along here somewhere, scouting for Lisa. And she herself had probably crossed, unless … unless her direction had been a blind. And when I’d left her at the creek, she might have gone off to east or west.
West? Well … maybe, but not likely. The further west a body rode, the wilder it grew. And the least water was toward the west. It was more open, too, for a good many miles toward the Pecos it was dry … damned dry, in fact. The odds said she had gone east or south … But what about Indians? And where, I thought suddenly, was Bert Harley’s place?
The stage stop known as Ben Ficklin’s must be forty miles off, at least. Harley’s place was not likely to be more than ten miles from the Stirrup-Iron, so it should be somewhere along this creek, or in some draw leading to it. Well, that wasn’t what I was looking for.
Suddenly, not fifty yards off … Ol’ Brindle.
He had his head up, watching me. His head high, thataway, I could have stood up straight under his horns, he was that big. He was in mighty good shape, too. For a moment, we just sat there looking at him, that dun and me. Then I reined my horse away with a casual wave of the hand. “Take it easy, boy,” I said, “nobody’s huntin’ you.” And I rode wide around him, his eyes on me all the way. When I was pretty nigh past him he turned suddenly, watching me like a cat. The creek ran silently along near the way I followed, and I wove in and out among the pecan trees, occasional walnuts and oak, with mesquite mostly farther back from the water.