Now there was mighty little I knew about this country. But sitting around bunkhouses there’s talk, and some of the boys had been down into this country a time or two. Where I now was, if I had figured right, was Kiowa Creek, and a few miles further along it flowed into the middle Concho. This man seemed to be in no hurry. First, he was sure he wasn’t followed. Second, this was his country and he knew it well. And, also, I had an idea he was studying on what to do.
When Ann Timberly had come up on him. the bottom fell out of his set-up. For nigh onto four years, he’d had it all his own way. He’d been stealing cattle and hiding them out. There’d been no roundup, so it was a while before anybody realized what was happening.
Now, on the verge of success at last, this girl had discovered him. Maybe he was no killer … at least not a killer of women. Maybe he was taking his time, trying to study a way out.
The stars were out when I pulled up and stepped down from the dun. There was a patch of meadow, some big old pecans and walnuts, and a good deal of brush of one kind or another. I let the dun roll, led him to water, then picketed him on the grass. Between a couple of big old deadfalls, I bedded down. Sitting there, listening to my horse eating grass, I ate a couple of biscuits and some cold meat I’d brought from the Stirrup-Iron. The last thing I wanted was to sit, but by now Ann and the man who had her prisoner had probably arrived where they were going … Yet one thing puzzled me. There’d been no more cattle tracks. Trailing Ann and her captor, I’d completely forgotten the cattle, and somewhere the trails had diverged. Yet that was not the problem now.
With a poncho and saddle blanket, I made out to sleep some. It was no more than I’d had to sleep with many a night before so, tired as I was, I slept. And ready as I was to ride on, I opened my eyes with the morning stars in the sky. Bringing my horse in, I watered him, saddled up and wished I had some coffee. Light was just breaking when we started on, the dun and me. And I carried my Winchester in my hands, and spare cartridges in my pockets. It was all green and lovely around me now. Their trail was only a track or two, a broken green twig, grass scarred by a hoof … Suddenly the trail turned sharply away from the creek, went a couple of hundred yards off, then swung around in a big circle to the creek again … Why?
Reining in, I looked back. There was an old trail following along the creek bank that had been regularly used, so why the sudden swing out from it? A trap? Or what?
Riding back around the loop, I peered into the trees and brush, trying to see what was there, and I saw nothing. Back at the creek where they had turned off, I walked my horse slowly along the old trail. Suddenly, the dun shied. It was Danny Rolf.
His body lay there, maybe a dozen feet off the trail, and he’d been shot in the back. The bullet looked to have cut his spine, but there was another shot into his head, just to make sure.
He wore only one boot … the other probably pulled off when he fell from his horse and his foot twisted in the stirrup.
Poor Danny! A lonesome boy, looking for a girl, and now this … Dead in the trail, drygulched. Something about the way the body lay bothered me. And studying the tracks, I saw what it was.
When Danny was shot he was coming back!
He had been to where he was going, and he had started home … And the rider who was Ann’s captor had known the body was there, and had circled so Ann would not see it.
He, then, was the killer.
22
Moving over into the shadow of the trees, I studied the situation. Whatever doubts there might have been before, there could be none now. The unknown man with the rifle had killed once, and he would kill again. Yet as he had brought Ann this far, he might be having doubts. To kill a man was once thing, a woman another.
Moreover, he was wily and wary. In this seemingly bland and innocent country, there were dozens of possible lurking places for a rifleman, and anytime I moved into the open, my life was in danger. Yet so was the life of Ann. Ahead of me, if what the boys at the ranch had said was true, this Kiowa Creek flowed into the Middle Concho. There was a fork up ahead, and the killer might have gone either way. Yet I did not believe he thought himself followed. He had passed along this creek yesterday, and by now had probably reached his destination.
I swore bitterly. How did I get into these situations? The fact that I was good with guns was mostly accidental. I had been born with a certain coordination, a steady hand and a cool head, and the circumstances of my living had given them opportunity to develop. I knew I was fast with a gun, but it meant no more to me than being good at checkers or poker. It would have been much more useful to be good with a rope, and I was only fair.
Now I was facing up to a shooting fight when all I wanted to do was work cattle and see the country. I’d heard of men who supposedly looked for adventure, but to me that was a lot of nonsense. Adventure was nothing but a romantic name for trouble, and nobody over eighteen in his right mind looked for it. Most of what people called adventure happened in the ordinary course of the day’s work. The chances were, the killer had taken Ann on to wherever he was going, and they should be there by now. There was no time to think of Ann now … she was where she was and she was either dead or momentarily safe. What I had to think about was me. If I didn’t get through to where she was, we might both be dead. I could ride right out of here and summon the major and his men, but by that time it might be too late for Ann. I was no hero, and did not want to be one. I wanted to look through my horse’s ears at a lot of new country, to bed down at night with the sound of leaves or running water, to get up in the morning to the smell of woodsmoke and bacon frying. Yet what could I do?
You don’t follow a man’s trail across a lot of country without learning something about him, and I liked nothing I had learned about this one. What did I know? He was cool, careful and painstaking. He had succeeded in stealing at least a thousand head of cattle, probably twice that many—and over a period of three to four years—without being seen or even suspected. He had managed to create suspicion among the basin ranchers, so they suspected each other and not an outsider. He had moved around in what seemed to be a wide-open country, without anyone knowing he was around … Unless he was around all the time and therefore unsuspected.
That thought gripped me. If so … Who?
Moreover, he had shown no urge to kill anyone until I came along and seemed to be closing in on him. Danny had probably been shot by mistake because of the red shirt.
But wait a minute … Hadn’t somebody mentioned another cowhand who rode off to the southeast and never came back?
The chances were, the killer did not kill unless it looked like his plan was about to be exposed. He had several years’ work at stake and, just on the verge of success, things started to go wrong.
I had tracked him. Danny had come into his own country. And then Ann Timberly, forever riding the range, had come upon him somehow. One by one I turned the suspects over in my mind. Rossiter was naturally the first I thought of, because he was a shrewd man, dangerous, and known to me as a cow thief. Nor did I believe he was as blind as he let on. Nevertheless, he could not long be away from the ranch without folks worrying, because of his blindness.
Roger Balch? A tough little man who wished to be known as such, driving to prove himself, but neither cautious nor shrewd. It could be Roger Balch. It could be Saddler.