He sat easy in the saddle, more at home than in many months, for almost half his life had been lived astride a horse. He liked the dun, which had an easy, space-eating stride. He had won the horse in a poker game in Ogden, and won the saddle and bridle in the same game. The new Winchester ’73, newest and finest gun on the market, he had bought in San Francisco.
A breeze whispered in the grass, turning it to green and shifting silver as the wind stirred along the bottomland. Rafe heard the gallop of a horse behind him and reined in, turning. Tex Brisco rode up alongside. “We should be about there, Rafe,” he said, digging in his pocket for the makings.
“Tell me about that business again, will you?” Rafe nodded. “Rodney’s brand was one he bought from an hombre named Shafter Mason. It was the Bar M. He had two thousand acres in Long Valley that he bought from Red Cloud, paid him good for it, and he was runnin’ cattle on that, and some four thousand acres outside the valley. His cabin was built in the entrance to Crazy Man Canyon. “He borrowed money from, and mortgaged the land to, a man named Bruce Barkow. Barkows a big cattleman down here, tied in with three or four others. He has several gunmen workin” for him, and Rodney never trusted him, but he was the only man around who could loan him the money he needed.” “What’s your plan?” Brisco asked, his eyes following the cattle. “Tex, I haven’t got one. I couldn’t plan until I saw the lay of the land. The first thing will be to find Mrs. Rodney and her daughter, and from therh, learn what the situation is.
Then we can go to work. In the meantime, I aim to sell these cattle and hunt up Red Cloud.” “That’ll be tough,” Tex suggested. “Mere’s been some Injun trouble, and he’s a Sioux. Mostly, they’re on the prod right now.” “I can’t help it, Tex,” Rafe said.
“I’ve got to see him, tell him I have the deed, and explain so’s he’ll understand. He might turn out to be a good friend, and he would certainly make a bad enemy.” “There may be some question about these cattle,” Tex suggested drily. “What of it?” Rafe shrugged.
“They are all strays. We culled them out of canyons where no white man has been in years, and slapped our own brand on “em. We’ve driven them two hundred miles, so nobody here has any claim on them. Whoever started cattle where we found these left the country a long time ago. You remember what that old trapper told us?” “Yeah,” Tex agreed. “Our claim’s good enough.” He glanced again at the brand and then looked curiously at Rafe. “Man, why didn’t you tell me your old man owned the C Bar? My uncle rode for ’em a while! I heard a lot about ’em! When you said to put the C Bar on these cattle you could have knocked me down with an ax! Why, Uncle Joe used to tell me all about the C Bar outfit! The old man had a son who was a ringtailed terror as a kid. Slick with a gun …. Say!” Tex Brisco stared at Rafe. “You wouldn’t be the same one, would you?” “I’m afraid I am,” Rafe said.
“For a kid I was too slick with a gun. Had a run-in with some old enemies of Dad’s, and when it was over, I hightailed for Mexico.” “Heard about it.” Tex turned his sorrel out in a tight circle to cut a steer back into the herd, and they moved on.
Rafe Caradec rode warily, with an eye on the country. This was all Indian country, and the Sioux and Cheyennes had been hunting trouble ever since Custer had ridden into the Black Hills, which was the heart of the Indian country and almost sacred to the plains tribes. This was the near end of Long Valley, where Rodney’s range had begun. It could be no more than a few miles to Crazy Man Canyon and his cabin.
Rafe touched a spur to the dun and cantered toward the head of the drive. There were three hundred head of cattle in this bunch, and when the old trapper had told him about them, curiosity had impelled him to have a look. In the green bottom of several adjoining canyons these cattle, remnants of a herd brought into the country several years before, had looked fat and fine.
It had been brutal, bitter work, but he and Tex had rounded up and branded the cattle.
Then they had hired two drifting cowhands to help them with the drive.
He passed the man riding point and headed for the strip of trees where Crazy Man Creek curved out of the canyon and turned in a long sweeping semicircle out to the middle of the valley and then down its center, irrigating some of the finest grassland he had ever seen. Much of it, he noted, was subirrigated from the mountains that lifted on both sides of the valley.
The air was fresh and cool after the long, hot drive over the mountains and desert. The heavy fragrance of the pines and the smell of the long grass shimmering with dew lifted to his nostrils. He moved the dun down to the stream and sat his saddle while the horse dipped its muzzle into the clear, cold water of the Crazy Man.
When the gelding lifted his head, Rafe waded him across the stream and climbed the opposite bank. Then he turned upstream toward the canyon.
The bench beside the stream, backed by its stand of lodgepole pines, looked just as Rodney had described it. Yet as the cabin came into sight, Rafe’s lips tightened with apprehension, for there was no sign of life. The dun, feeling his anxiety, broke into a canter.
One glance sufficed. The cabin was empty and evidently had been so for a long time.
Rafe was standing in the door when Tex rode up.
Brisco glanced around and then at Rafe.
“Well,” he said, “looks like we’ve had a long ride for nothin”.” The other two hands rode up-Johnny Gill and Bo Marsh, both Texans. With restless saddles, they had finished a drive in the Wyoming country, then headed west, and had ridden clear to Salt Lake. On their return they had run into Rafe and Tex, and hired on to work the herd east to Long Valley. Gill, a short, leather-faced man of thirty, stared around.
“I know this place,” he said. “Used to be the Rodney ranch. Feller name of Dan Shute took over. Rancher.” “Shute, eh?” Tex glanced at Caradec.
“Not Barkow?” Gill shook his head. “Barkow made out to be helpin’ Rodney’s womenfolks, but he didn’t do much good. Personal, I never figgered he cut no great swath a-tryin’.
Anyway, this here Dan Shute is a bad hombre.” “Well,” Rafe said casually, “maybe we’ll find out how bad. I aim to settle right here.” Gill looked at him thoughtfully. “You’re buyin’ yourself a piece of trouble, mister,” he said.
“But I never cottoned to Dan Shute, myself. You got any rightful claim to this range? This is where you was headed, ain’t it?” “That’s right,” Rafe said, “and I have a claim.” “Well, Bo,” Gill said, hooking a leg over the saddle horn, “want to drift on, or do we stay and see how this gent stacks up with Dan Shute?” Marsh grinned. He had a reckless, infectious grin. “Sure, Johnny,” he said.
“I’m for stayin’ on. Shute’s got him a big red-headed hand ridin’ for him that I never liked, no ways.” “Thanks, boys,” Rafe said. “Looks like I’ve got an outfit. Keep the cattle in pretty close the next few days. I’m ridin” in to Painted Rock.” “That town belongs to Barkow,” Gill advised. “Might pay you to kind of check up on Barkow and Shute. Some of the boys talkin’ around the chuckwagon sort of figgered there was more to that than met the eye. That Bruce Barkow is a right important gent around here, but when you read his sign, it don’t always add up.” “Maybe,” Rafe suggested thoughtfully, “you’d better come along. Let Tex and Marsh worry with the cattle.” Rafe Caradec turned the dun toward Painted Rock. Despite himself, he was worried. His liking for the little cattleman Rodney had been very real, and he had come to know and respect the man while aboard the Mary S . In the weeks that had followed the flight from the ship, he had been considering the problem of Rodney’s ranch so much that it had become much his own problem.
Now, Rodney’s worst fears seemed to have been realized. The family had evidently been run off their ranch, and Dan Shute had taken possession.
Whether there was any connection between Shute and Barkow remained to be seen, but Caradec knew that chuckwagon gossip can often come close to the truth and that cowhands could many times see men more clearly than people who saw them only on their good behavior or when in town. As he rode through the country toward Painted Rock, he studied it curiously and listened to Johnny Gill’s comments.