Briefly, with no details, McQueen explained, saying nothing about the herd except to mention the names of the men riding with it.
Kim stared at him. “A herd of three hundred white-faces? And with Red Naify? Who’re those others yuh mentioned?”
“Baldy Jackson and Bud Fox. Good men. Naify told us the other riders rode off and left ‘em.”
“Like the devil they did!” Kim snapped.
“Somebody’s lyin’, ma’am!”
“We’d better get Iver,” Ruth said hesitantly. “He always knows what to do.”
Ward McQueen shook his head. “If yuh mean Iver Hoyt, ma’am, I wouldn’t get him. He’s a crook, tryin’ to rustle them cattle hisself.”
Ruth stiffened and her eyes flashed.
“You don’t know what you’re saying!” she said
sharply. “He’s been a very good friend! My only friend, aside from Kim here. And he wasn’t found riding Dan’s horse!”
“I reckon not,” McQueen replied
grimly, “but he—“
The door opened suddenly to interrupt him, and Iver Hoyt stepped in, two men crowding in behind him.
“Ruth!” he said, “Dan’s horse is outside!” His eyes found Ward McQueen and his lips tightened. “Ruth, who is this man?”
“Don’t yuh remember me?” McQueen said gently. “That Texas rider yuh hired back at Pilot Creek. The one yuh told Red Naify to work on the same basis as the others.”
“Yuh’re crazy!” Hoyt snapped. 67
“I never saw yuh before in my life. As for Red Naify, the man’s an outlaw! A rustler!”
“If I never saw yuh before,” McQueen said quietly, “how do I know yore gun butt’s got the head of a longhorn steer on it? How do I know yuh ride a bay hoss with three white stockin’s?”
Kim stood with his thumbs hooked in his belt. “I’ve noticed that steer’s head, Hoyt. And he sure enough has yore hoss spotted.”
“He’s a liar!” Hoyt snarled, his hands poised. “I never saw him before!”
“I’ll take care of that liar business in due
time,” McQueen said softly. “In the meantime,
tell us what happened to Chuck and Stan
Jonesffwas
Ruth looked up quickly, staring at Hoyt.
Iver Hoyt’s face tightened.
“They went back to Montana!” he snapped.
“They were coming on here, Iver,” Ruth Kermitt
said quietly. “Yuh know they’d promised to work for me. They wouldn’t break a promise. Neither of them would.”
Hoyt stiffened and his eyes turned hard. “So? You don’t believe me either? We’ll discuss this in the mornin’!” He turned abruptly and walked from the room, followed by the two men with him.
“Ma’am, I think I better get back to them cattle,” Ward McQueen suggested suddenly. “Hoyt’ll try to steal ‘em, and soon. In fact, I think he’ll try it sooner now than he’d planned.”
“I’ll go back with yuh,” Kim said. “I think yuh’re smokin’ some skunks out of this tree, podner!”
It was almost daylight when they rode down the slope of the mountain near Secret Pass and cut across the plain toward Snow Water. They were still almost a half mile away when a volley of shots rang out.
McQueen touched spurs to the black and whipped it around some tall sage and started on a dead run for the camp. Then, ahead, there was another shot. Then another and another.
He sighted the wagon and slowed down. Kim Sartain was behind him, and suddenly McQueen glimpsed the moonlight on Baldy’s head.
At the same instant he saw the gleam of a
lifted rifle. 69
“Hold it!” he yelled. “It’s me!”
He swung down. “What happened?”
Baldy grinned. “After yuh left, we got
to thinkin’, so when it come dark we rolled up some sacks and left them on the ground near the fire. Then we moved back in the sagebrush. A few minutes ago some rannies come up and let go with a volley into those dummies. A half minute later I see one of ‘em move closer for a look, and I let him have it.”
Suddenly a voice called out of the darkness.
“Hey, Baldyffwas It was Red Naify calling. “Put down yore guns. It’s all right. They run off when they saw me and the boss comin’.”
McQueen fell back into the deep shadows under the wagon.
“Get out of sight, Kim,” he whispered. “They didn’t see us come in. Call ‘em in, Baldy, but be careful.”
At that moment there was a soft voice from the shadows in the direction Ward and Sartain had come.
“I’m going to wait here. I want to see this, too.”
It was Ruth Kermitt! She had followed them out from town. Well, maybe it was the best way, McQueen thought.
“Come on in,” Baldy said, “but come slow.”
Red Naify, his blocky, powerful body
looking even bigger in the dancing firelight, came first. After him, only a step behind but to the right, was Iver Hoyt.
“Glad yuh boys ain’t turned in yet,” Red said. “We’re goin’ to move these cows.”
“Tonight?” Baldy objected. “Where to?”
“Up in the Humboldts,” Hoyt said. “I
know the place.” He looked around. “Who was shootin’?”
“That’s what we wondered.” Bud Fox had his thumbs in his gun belt. His eyes shifted from Naify to Hoyt. “Lucky they didn’t get us.”
Ward, crouching under the wagon, could see what was coming. Naify had casually moved two steps farther to the left. Baldy and Bud were going to be caught in a cross fire. He stepped from under the wagon and straightened, hearing Kim move out also.
One step took him into the firelight. “Fall back, you two,” he said quietly. “I’m takin’ over!”
“And me,” Kim said. “Don’t forget 71 me.”
“Yuh’re an awful fool, Hoyt,” Ward McQueen said suddenly. “Why don’t yuh ask Naify what he did with the money he took off Dan Kermitt.”
Hoyt’s eyes suddenly blazed up.
“Naify, did yuh get that fifty thousand?”
“Fifty thousand?” Stark incredulity rang
in Red Naify’s voice. “Why, I only
got sixty dollars!” Suddenly his eyes
gleamed. “Boss, he’s got it! He’s got
it right there in his pocket!”
Iver Hoyt smiled suddenly. “So, we won’t lose after all! Boys, come in!”
There was a sound of movement, and four more men stepped into the circle of light. One of them tossed a bundle of brush on the fire, and it blazed up.
“Think yuh’re pretty smart, don’t yuh, Hoyt?” McOueen said quietly. “Yuh engineered this whole steal, didn’t yuh?”
“Of course,” Hoyt admitted proudly.
“We stole old Kermitt blind up in
Montana. He was too fresh from the East to know what was happenin’ to him. Then he found us that night and I had to kill him.”
Suddenly a new voice sounded. “You four back up against the wagon and stay out of this. I’ve got a double-barrel shotgun here, and if there is one move out of you, I’ll let you have both barrels!”
Ruth Kermitt stood there. Tall, splendid in the firelight, she looked like a portrait of all the pioneer women of any age. The shotgun she held was steady and she waved the four back.
“I’ll second that motion, ma’am,” Bud Fox said quietly, “with a six-gun!”
Baldy spoke suddenly and his voice drawled.
“This is goin’ to be pretty. Real pretty,” he said. “Hoyt, yuh know who this ranny is yuh’re talkin’ to? This here’s Ward McQueen. Think back a ways. Where’d yuh hear that name afore?”
Baldy paused, and he saw a frown appear on Iver Hoyt’s face.
“Ward, yuh had a bosom friend in Larry
White, didn’t yuh?” he said to McQueen
then. “Well, Iver Hoyt’s full name 73
is Iver Hoyt Harrisffwas
“Ike Harris!” Ward McQueen’s face suddenly went stone cold. “Kim,” he said suddenly, and his voice rang loud, “as a favor, let me have them both! Now!”
It was Hoyt who moved first. At the mention of Larry White’s name, his face went dead pale, and his hand, twitching nervously, shot down for his gun.
McQueen’s six-guns seemed to leap from their holsters, spewing jagged darts of fire. Hoyt, caught full in the chest by a leaden slug, was smashed back to his heels, and then another slug caught him in the face, and another in the throat.
Coolly, ignoring Red Naify, he poured fire into the killer of his friend. Then he took one swinging step, bringing himself around to face Naify.
Red, a leer on his face, was waiting.
“Yuh dirty coyote!” he snarled.
Both men’s guns belched flame. Red
swayed on his feet, and then Ward McQueen stepped forward, firing as coolly as though on a target range. He stepped again, and each time his foot planted, his guns roared. Smashed back by the heavy slugs Red Naify staggered, then toppled to his knees.
His face a bloody mess from a bullet that had burned a hole through the right side of his face below the eye, he lifted his gun and fired again. The bullet hit McQueen and he staggered, but bracing himself, he brought one gun down and triggered it again. The dart of fire seemed almost to touch Red’s face, and he toppled over on his face in the dust, his gun belching one last grass-cutting shot as his fist closed in agony.