“Maybe she found herself somebody else to chase her,” I said, amused. “They all do sooner or later.”
He took up his fork again. “I think maybe you have said something, amigo. I think tomorrow we will not hunt cows.”
“No?”
“We will hunt … maybe a little red heifer. Maybe we find her … maybe we find something else. I think we will take our rifles.” We went out at daybreak, and I rode the bay with the black mane and tail. It was a cool, pleasant morning, and we ate a quick breakfast. Fuentes led the way toward our hidden spring, and as he neared it he began casting back and forth, suddenly to draw rein and point: “See? Her track. Two days … maybe three days old.”
She had drunk at the pool below the spring, and then had moved off, browsing, as cattle will, along with several others. We followed them out of the hollow and up on the high country beyond, yet it was almost noon before there was a change. “Amigo? Look!”
I had seen it. Suddenly the wandering ceased and the little red heifer took on direction. She was going straight along now, hurrying occasionally, and she was with several others whose browsing had been interrupted. The reason was immediately obvious:
The track of a horse!
Now more cattle, brought in from the north, more cattle being driven east toward the hills. Another rider.
“If they see us,” I suggested, “they will see we follow a trail. Let us spread out, as if searching for strays, but let us keep within sight of one another.” “Bueno, amigo.” He cut off from me, occasionally standing in his stirrups as if looking. But we kept on, first one and then another cutting the trail of the small herd … at least thirty head now … perhaps more. It was no wonder we had found no cattle. Somebody was deliberately driving them away from us. Occasionally they let the cattle drift while they rounded up more, until at the end of what was obviously several days’ work they had made a gather of at least a hundred head.
“They drive them far,” Fuentes said, “but I am puzzled. If they wish to steal them, why not drive south, no?”
A thought came to me. “Maybe they do not plan to steal them, Fuentes. Maybe they just hope to keep us from sellin’ them. If we don’t get them to the roundup, they won’t be sold.”
“And if they are not?”
“Then Rossiter won’t have as much money as he may need. Maybe then he will lose the ranch, and maybe then somebody will buy it who knows there are more cattle than Rossiter thinks he has.”
“It is a thought, amigo, a very likely thought, and it is another way of stealing, no? Senor Rossiter believes he has few cattle left, he is in trouble, he sells for little, when there are truly many cattle.” “There’s one thing wrong, I think. Aside from your little red heifer, I didn’t see the tracks of much young stuff. These are steers, some cows … their hoofs are a little sharper … but very few young ones.” We made dry camp in the hollow atop a ridge, a sheltered hollow that allowed us to have a fire after the darkness came, by using buffalo chips for fuel. It was a high ridge, with a good view, and after we had eaten we left the coffeepot on the coals and went out on the ridge to look over the country. Above was a vast field of stars, but we scarcely saw them. We looked for another kind of light … a fire.
“You know this country best,” I said. “Where do the ranches lie from here?” He thought about that for an instant. “We are too far east, amigo. This is wild country where no man rides, only the Comanches or the Kiowa sometimes, and for them we must be wary.
“Back there lies the major’s place … It is the closest. Away to the horizon yonder is where Balch and Saddler are.”
“And Harley?”
“He has no ranch, amigo, only a homestead, I think, a very small place. He is there.” He pointed at a place nearer, yet still some distance off. “Tony?” I pointed. “Look there!”
It was—and not more than a mile away—a fire. A campfire in wild country!
6
This country was wild and lonely, and there was reason for it. East of us, the ranches were pushing west from Austin and San Antonio; and west of us, a few venturesome ranchers were trying to settle in the Panhandle country. But this area where we were was a hunting ground and traveling route of the Kiowas and the Comanches who raided into Mexico.
It was Apache country, too, mostly Lipans, I believed, but I was no expert on this area of Texas. Most of what I knew was campfire talk … An army patrol had been massacred south of us two years before, and a freighter trying a new route toward Horsehead Crossing had been attacked, losing two men and all of his stock.
A rider for one of the Panhandle outfits had cut loose to go on his own and had tried settling down in this country. He lasted through one hardworking spring, fighting sleet, dust storms and late frost. The country killed his crops and the Indians got his cattle. When he tried riding out, leaving in disgust, they got him.
His cabin was somewhere south and east of us. Everybody had heard of it, but nobody knew exactly where it was. There were also rumors of some big caves in the country, but those we had yet to see.
Neither Fuentes nor me had any great itch to ride any closer to that campfire, although we were curious. If it was Kiowas, it was a good chance to lose hair, and the same for Lipans or Comanches. Anyway, we could ride down there tomorrow and, if they had pulled out, as seemed likely, we could put almost as much together by studying the remains of camp as if we actually saw it alive from close up.
A greenhorn might have tried slipping up on that camp. And if he was a good man at outguessing Indians, he might get close and get away … but he might not, either. It never seemed wise to me to take unnecessary chances, and Fuentes was of the same mind. We were way past that kid stage of daring somebody, or doing something to show how big and brave we were.
That was for youngsters not dry behind the ears. We moved when we thought it right to move, and we fought when the chips were down, but we never went around hunting trouble.
After studying that fire we went back and turned in, letting our horses keep watch for us. We’d been lyin’ there a while when I spoke out. “Tony, there’s something wrong about this.”
“Si?” His voice was sleepy, yet amused. “Somebody stealing cows, no?” “Maybe … All we’ve got is some idea that cows have been moved, and the cows that were moved are a mixed lot. On the other hand, the cattle that are missing are young stuff.
“The old stock somebody might try to steal. But the young stuff? It’s mostly too young to sell with profit, which means that whoever has the young stuff intends to hold it a while … And of course the young stuff hasn’t been branded.” Fuentes said nothing and he was probably asleep, but it kept me awake a while, thinking about it. If all they wanted was young stuff, why had they broken the pattern and stolen older stock?
At daybreak we rolled out and had coffee over a buffalo-chip fire. We ate a little jerky and biscuit and then crawled into the saddle and left out of there. We taken a roundabout route and cut down into the bottom where we’d seen the cattle.
There was quite a bit of timber down there, and some rough, broken country. We saw no cattle at first, then a scattering of stuff, most of it wearing Stirrup-Iron brands. There was a sprinkling of Spur stuff, too, and we started them drifting toward home … knowing a few of them might keep going, but that we’d have to round up and push most of them.
We taken our time, scouting around as if hunting strays, but working closer to where the campfire had been. It was nigh onto two hours after sunrise when we came up on the camp.
It was deserted. A thin feather of smoke stood above the coals, which had been built with care not to let the fire get away. Two people had been in the camp, and they’d had two packhorses. One of the men carried a rifle with a couple of prongs on the butt plate that would kind of fit over the shoulder at the armpit. I’d seen another such gun some years back, and some fancy boys had them. I never cared for them myself, but it was easy to see that was his kind of gun, because wherever he put it down he left that mark in the ground. Fuentes saw them, too. “We’ll know him when we see him,” he commented, dryly.