Suddenly, maybe a half mile from where I’d seen Ol’ Brindle, I pulled up. Tracks of cattle, quite a bunch of them, crossed the creek at this point heading south. The tracks were several days old, and there were vague impressions of still earlier drives, almost wiped out by rain and time. Starting forward, the dun shied suddenly and I saw a rattler crossing the trail. He stopped, head up, looking at me with no favor. He was five feet long if he was an inch, and half as thick as my wrist.
“Stay out of my way,” I said, “and I’ll stay out of yours.” I reined the dun around and waded the creek. The water was just over his hocks. Following the cow tracks, I worked my way through the mesquite and out on the flat. There, on the edge of the plains country that lay ahead, I drew up. The Lopez peaks were still east and south. More closely due south was another peak that might be even higher. They called them mountains here, but in Colorado they wouldn’t rank as such. Nonetheless, this was rugged country. The peak that was almost due south must be a good twenty-five miles away, but there was some green that might be trees along a creek not more than five or six miles off. The trouble was, once out on the plain I’d be visible to any watcher … There was low ground here and there, but not nearly as much as I wanted. Scouting the banks of the creek again, I found no tracks of a shod horse. Whoever was driving those cattle must have been riding … Unless he was atop an Indian pony!
That was a thought. I had thought he must have been riding on air, for there had been no tracks of a shod horse … or of any horse, when it came to that. Puzzled, I worked over the ground again … No tracks of a horse, yet cattle rarely bunch up like that unless driven. Usually, given their own time they will walk single file.
Another thought came suddenly from nowhere. Six ranches, I’d been told, and I knew of no farms … Where, then, did China Benn come from? The blacksmith from Balch and Saddler had brought her to the dance … Was she a relative of one of them? Somehow I’d had no such impression. Thinking of China turned my thoughts to Ann Timberly. Now there was a girl! Not only lovely to look at, she was a girl with a mind of her own—swift, sure, always on the spot in trouble and never at a loss as to what to do. Even when it was taking a swing at me with a quirt! I chuckled, and the dun twitched his ears, surprised, I guess.
The cattle tracks were headed south, and I fell in behind. Once in a while there was a hoof print. But more than that, there was a sort of trail here, a way where cattle or something had gone many times before, and bunched-up cattle, at that.
Under the shoulder of a small bluff, some twenty feet high, I drew up in the shadow, wanting to think this out. From here on, I would be in enemy country, and not only cow-thief country.
South of me somewhere, likely close to the Lopez peaks was the Middle Concho. This was deadman’s country, and I was a damned fool to be riding here. Danny was undoubtedly dead or had left the country, and there was no sense in adding my bones to his on the plains of the Concho.
My dun started off of his own volition, wearied of standing. Yet we had gone no more than fifty yards when a wide draw cut into the one along which I rode, it came in from the northeast and I saw the tracks before I reached the opening. Two riders … Puzzled, I studied the trail.
One always ahead of the other who followed a little offside and behind. The tracks were from last night, because I could see tiny insect trails in the sand where they had crossed and recrossed the tracks during the night. Warily, I looked around … Nothing in sight. A few more tracks … I knew that long, even stride of the first horse: the unseen rider and probably the marksman who had been trying for my scalp … The tracks were clear and definite in a few places, a horse freshly-shod not long since.
Following at a walk, I studied the tracks, tried to understand what it was about the situation that disturbed me. There were a number of places where two could have ridden side by side, but they had not.
Both horses were shod … it came to me with a sudden hunch. The second horse was being led! It was pretty much of a guess, but it fitted the pattern. A led horse! I knew there was also a rider in the led horse’s saddle from the way the horse had moved.
What I needed was a definite set of tracks for the second horse. I got them when they passed some damp sand near a seep …
My breath caught and I drew up sharply. No mistake … Those were the tracks of Ann Timberly’s horse.
These were days when men lived by tracks, and the average cowpoke, ranchman, Indian or lawman could read a man’s track or a horse’s track as easily as most eastern folks could read a signature. You saw tracks, and somehow they just filed themselves away in your memories for future reference. I’d had occasion to follow Ann Timberly to her pa’s ranch. And I knew the way that horse stepped, knew the tracks he left.
Ann Timberly riding a led horse behind the man I was sure was the stock thief. She was forever riding the country, and she must have come upon him or his trail—and been caught when he saw her coming, and laid for her. That was a good deal of surmising, but the fact was: he had her. For three to four years, this man had been stealing stock, preparing for something. And now he had been seen and recognized, and his whole plan could blow up in his face if Ann got away to tell of it. Therefore, he dared not let her get away. He had to kill her. Then why hadn’t he? Because he didn’t want the body found? No doubt. Killing a woman, particularly the major’s daughter, would blow the lid off the countryside. Every rider who could straddle a horse would be out for the killer. Take her out of the country and then kill her? That made some kind of sense. Of course, he might have other plans. Now there was no nonsense about it. I had to stay with them. Moreover, I had to stay alive and save her life, and that would take some doing.
That trail had been made yesterday evening, perhaps near to dark. They had camped … I’d find their camp soon. They might still be there, but I doubted it. This gent would travel far and fast.
I shucked my Winchester.
Taking it easy, I walked my horse forward, lifted it into a canter, and moved along the shallow draw, alert for trouble. Maybe I’d come upon their camp. Right now I was seven or eight miles from the creek where I’d seen the tracks of Ol’ Brindle, and twelve to fifteen miles from the line-cabin. Topping out on the plain, I followed the tracks at a gallop, went into another shallow draw and suddenly got smart. I stepped off my horse and put one flat stone atop another, then another alongside to indicate direction. If something happened to me, and the major and his boys started looking, they might need to know where I’d gone.
Dipping down into another draw among the mesquite, I smelled smoke. Rifle in my hands, I walked my horse through the mesquite until I could see the smoke … only a faint trail of it from a dying fire near some big old pecans. A small fire … I could see where the horses had been tied, and where she had slept between two trees. He had slept some fifteen to twenty feet away, near the horses. Where she had bedded down … and I could see her heel prints and the marks left by her spurs … there were dry leaves all around. He had also taken the precaution to break small, dry branches and scatter them all about where he left her. So if she got free during the night, she couldn’t make a move without making noise.
Cagey … he was very, very cagey. But I’d known that all along. Whoever the man was, he was a plainsman, a man who knew his way around wild country. He had made coffee … there were some coffee grounds near the fire … And the dew was mostly gone from the grass before they had moved out. They’d made a late start, but that didn’t help much because the day was almost gone before I found their camp. Yet I rode on, wanting to use all the daylight I had. And before it was full dark, I’d covered a good five miles and was moving due south.