Collection 1999 - Beyond The Great Snow Mountains (v5.0) (6 page)

W
HEN HE HAD bathed his face and repaired the cuts as best he could, Ward McQueen studied the situation. He was wrong to have let Buff Colker goad him into a fight. Nobody ever gained anything permanent by violence despite the satisfaction derived from a solid smash of a fist.

Colker was not his problem. He knew that Gallatin and Lopez had been sleepering cattle, and there seemed to be a connection between them and the Yost crowd, and possibly with Black.

He must find something more concrete in the way of evidence. Without returning to the corral, he dropped to a seat on a wooden bench in the shade near the back door of the cook shack. From where he sat he could see the dust rising from the branding corral, and the hills beyond.

The cook stuck his head out of the door and grinned at him. “Coffee,
señor
?”

“You bet, Pedro! An’ thanks.”

Sleepering cattle by day was a risky job, but it had been done. Baldy and Bud had the right idea, to check the herd by night and watch for the rustlers. Gerber himself might even be in it, but McQueen could not bring himself to admit that, nor could he quite believe that Ernie Yost, crooked as he was, would be the ringleader in any such scheme. Yost might run off forty or fifty head and sell them over the border, but dangerous as he might be at times, he was not a man who planned big.

Sartain had suggested that Colker did not always go to town when he left the roundup. If not to Sotol, where did he go? To a hideout in the hills? Or was he, himself, drifting unbranded stock away from the main herd?

Ward McQueen mounted the roan and headed back for the branding corral. Baldy rode up to him as he approached.

“The boys workin’ back in the hills say the stock is mostly down out of the brush,” he commented. “Also, Bud seen Old Man Gerber back there in the woods.”

“Gerber? Out here?” Ward scowled. “What was he doing? Did Bud talk to him?”

“No, he didn’t. Bud found a few more Slash Seven cows for us and was starting them back. They showed no liking for open country, so he had his work cut out for him.”

“How long ago?”

“Right after the fight. He must be still back there because we heard a shot ’way back in the canyon, maybe a half hour ago.”

“A shot? What would he be shootin’ at?”

Baldy Jackson shrugged. “Want me to ride back an’ see? Maybe the old feller is skinnin’ you, Ward.”

“No, he’s honest enough. I think I’ll ride back there, though. You come along.”

“Kim was tellin’ about your run-in with Yost, an’ then with Black. You reckon they are in on this steal?”

Ward shrugged. “Could be. Lopez and Gallatin weren’t in it alone.”

The grass was parched and brown in the valley, and they were leaving the scattered growth of oak, Spanish dagger, and mesquite for higher ground and the cedar. The air felt thick and heavy. Across the shoulder of the mountain they pushed down into the thick brush, and here they ran into Jensen with four head of Slash 7’s, two YT’s, and a 21.

“You see Gerber here?” Ward demanded.

“No, I sure haven’t. Heard a shot a while back, then two more. I had these critters, though, an’ couldn’t chase over to investigate. Somebody shootin’ at a wolf, maybe, or a panther.”

“Start those cattle over the ridge and then come with us. We may need an outside witness.”

IV

W
ard mcqueen’s gray eyes swept the tangle before him. It would be like hunting for a needle in a haystack to search for anything down there. Still, if Gerber was out here, he was here for a reason.

The sun was blazing hot, and in the chaparral the heat was oppressive. It felt even more like a storm than before. If it rained, it would at least make travel better, and Ward’s plan was to start the herd within forty-eight hours if possible. It wouldn’t give the men much rest, but he wanted to be driving north to where the grass was better.

Along the trail north they could take their time. He wanted the cattle to feed all the way to Kansas, anyway.

Sweat trickled down his face, cutting a furrow through the dust. It was hot. He wiped his palms dry on his pant legs and let the roan find its way through the brush that now was higher than his head.

“More to the left, I reckon,” Jensen said. “You can’t always swear to the direction.”

“I smell smoke,” Baldy said. “Hold up! I smell smoke close to hand.”

“Who would want a fire on a day like this?” Jensen asked, of nobody in particular. “This place is like an oven.”

“Wait a minute!” Ward lifted a hand. “There’s something over here.” He turned his horse and pushed through the shin oak, then drew up sharply, and the roan snorted and backed up. “Dead man,” he said.

He trailed the bridle reins and dropped to the ground. He needed to go only a step nearer to recognize Dick Gerber. The white-haired old man was lying on his back, one arm thrown across his eyes to shield them from the sun.

Jensen dropped from his horse and bent over the old man. He placed a hand on his heart.

“Dead, all right. That’s too bad, he was a pretty good old boy, at that.”

“What was he doin’ with a fire?” Baldy demanded. “Hey, there’s a runnin’ iron!”

Ward scowled. “Gerber? With a runnin’ iron? What would he be brandin’?” He stared at the man, and then at the fire. “Hunt up his horse, Baldy, while Jensen an’ I have a look around.”

“He always carried a runnin’ iron, Mr. McQueen,” Jensen said. “The old man claimed it saved a sight of time to brand stock where he found it. Never went out but what he carried it.”

Ward looked around thoughtfully. Obviously, Gerber had used the iron. He bent over it and touched it. It was lying in the shade and it was still warm.

Gerber had been shot twice through the chest, never able to get his gun out. It was a plain case of murder.

“He had a critter down, Mr. McQueen,” Jensen said. “Here’s the tracks. He throwed it, an’ from the look hog-tied it.”

“Yeah.” Ward squatted on his heels. “Here’s a piggin’ string. But what would he want to brand back in here on a day like this?”

“It wasn’t dishonest,” Jensen said stubbornly. “I knew the old man well, as I guess you did. He was on the level.”

“Sure! But what was he doin’ here? An’ who shot him?”

Jensen scratched his jaw. “You know what they’ll say. They’ll say you done it. They’ll say after that trouble in town that you had more trouble and that you killed him in an argument over cattle.”

McQueen stared at the old man’s body. So far as he could see, nothing had been touched. He got up, studying the angle of the shots, but apparently the old man had not died at once, but had moved around some, and it was hard to figure. Yet, when he looked again, there did seem to be one possibility.

On the brow of a hill, not over fifty yards away, was a cluster of boulders. It was worth looking at.

“Baldy, go back to the ranch and get a buckboard,” he said. “Come as far as you can, an’ we’ll pack the body out to it.”

“You ought to be havin’ a look around, Mr. McQueen,” Jensen said seriously. “This here was murder, an’ you better find who done it. Folks sure liked this old man.”

Who had the opportunity? Jensen, of course. Bud Fox, too. Both of them had been working the brush, and there were probably two or three other hands who had been in the vicinity. But it wouldn’t make sense for any of them to kill him. It had to be someone else, and somehow it was sure to tie in with the sleepering of Slash 7 cattle.

Ward turned and fought his way through the brush to the nest of boulders on the hill. From atop a boulder, he studied the earth behind them. From here he could see Jensen standing over Gerber’s body, and the unknown murderer could have done the same. Behind the rocks were boot tracks, a number of them. He could find no cartridge anywhere around.

Jensen was waiting for him. “Find anything?”

“Tracks. That’s all. Probably whoever shot him did it from there, but that doesn’t tell us anything.”

Jensen scratched his unshaven jaw. “It does tell you a little, Mr. McQueen. It tells you the chances are that whoever killed him was following him. Nobody gets in this here brush by accident, an’ nobody’s goin’ to convince me that two men are in the brush by accident an’ one seen the other down here, then killed him.”

“It could be that way, though.” Ward pushed his hat back, then removed it and mopped the sweat band. “The thing is, the killer had a reason, an’ that’s where we’ve got to think this out. The killer must have seen Gerber down here with that critter thrown, an’ he didn’t want him to do what he was doin’.”

“Well, anybody could say he was rustlin’,” Jensen suggested. “I’ll never believe it of the old man, but it sure does look funny, him down here with a runnin’ iron an’ a critter throwed in this heat.”

“Or maybe there was something else. Maybe he was inspectin’ a brand somebody didn’t want him to look at too close. Could that be it?”

Jensen agreed dubiously. “Could be. But what brand?”

Baldy Jackson came up leading a horse. “Got the buckboard. There’s a passel of folks at the ranch. Sheriff, too.”

“The sheriff? Already?” Ward shrugged. “The law always gets there fast when you don’t want him. All right, we’ll have a talk.”

Ward McQueen rode back to the ranch followed by Baldy with the buckboard, and Gerber’s horse and the horse that packed him out of the brush trailing behind. Jensen brought up the rear, his face doubtful.

Buff Colker was there, and not far from him was Ruth Kermitt. Ward glanced quickly at her, but her eyes were averted and he could not catch her glance.

Other men walked up from the corrals and he saw Ernie Yost, Villani, and Black. Taylor was nowhere in evidence. Apparently, he, like Lopez, had decided he had enough.

Kim Sartain loafed nearby, leaning against an old Conestoga wagon. He nodded toward the tall man with the drooping mustache.

“Sheriff Jeff Davis, this is Ward McQueen.”

“Howdy.” Ward swung around. “What’s the trouble, Sheriff?”

“I hear there’s been some shootin’ around here. Who killed Dick Gerber?”

“That’s something I’d like to know,” McQueen told him. “We heard the shots, or some of the boys did, and later went to look around. We found Gerber, already dead.”

Davis stocked his pipe. “You had trouble with him in town?”

“Nothing serious. We were friends, only somebody told him I said he lied about the number of cattle we had here and he went off half-cocked. I bought four thousand head, but when we finished our gather the tally showed only a few over three thousand.”

“Then what happened?” Davis eyed him thoughtfully. Ward met his eyes and shrugged.

“We had our words in town, then sat down together and straightened things out. I didn’t see Dick again until we found him in the brush, dead.”

“He had a brandin’ iron alongside of him, an’ a fire goin’. He’d branded something.” Baldy made his offering and then shut up.

Davis glanced at him, one bleak, all-seeing glance. “The killer could have planted that. You could have planted it, McQueen.”

“I could have, but I didn’t. Dick Gerber never misbranded a cow in his entire life, and I’d bet on it. He drove a hard bargain often enough, but he was honest as they come.”

“You ask us to believe,” Colker interrupted, “that you parted from Gerber last night on a friendly basis when you had a thousand head missing from the tally? That sounds pretty broad-minded to me.”

For a moment Ward looked around at him. “What’s his part in this, Sheriff? As you can tell by the expression I pounded into his face, I don’t like him!”

“I’m a witness.” Colker smiled grimly. “I’ll have my say, too.”

“Want me to start him travelin’, boss?” Sartain asked. “I’d like that.”

“I’m in charge here.” Davis looked around at Kim. “I’ll start who movin’ when I want.”

Kim Sartain straightened away from the wheel. “Ward McQueen is my boss, and I’ll take his orders.”

“Are you takin’ that, Davis?” Yost thrust forward. “There have been two killin’s committed on this place today. Gallatin was shot down by McQueen, and then Gerber was bumped off. That Sartain is a killer; McQueen as much as admitted it the other day.”

“Was Gallatin killed?” Davis inquired gently. Ward found himself liking the man. Obviously, Sheriff Jeff Davis was no fool, and he was a man who knew his own mind.

“Yes, there was a gunfight. I accused Lopez of handling cattle at night. Gallatin interfered, and when I called him on it, he went for a gun. I tried to stop him, but couldn’t, so I drew.”

“I seen it, Jeff,” Jensen said flatly. “Gally asked for it. He was rustlin’ cows.”

“What about that thousand head?” Davis asked. “Found hide or hair of them?”

“I reckon we did,” Ward said, and his eyes swung to Buff Colker. “I think we’ve found ’em all!”

By the light that leaped suddenly in Colker’s eyes, McQueen knew he had guessed right. Buff Colker was the brains of the rustling on the Slash 7.

“They were sleeperin’ ’em, Sheriff. Driving unbranded stock around the pens at night an’ mixing them in with the mixed brands we were going to release. Lopez was in on it, an’ so was Gallatin. I think that Gerber smelled a rat, an’ when the killer trailed him an’ saw what he was doin’, he killed him.”

“Sheriff.” Ruth Kermitt spoke gently. “Have you had trouble with rustlers around here before?”

“Sure. Matter of fact, that was the reason Gerber was sellin’ his stock. Too much rustlin’.”

“And Gerber’s brand is a Slash Seven,” Ruth continued. “Can you think of a brand that a Slash Seven could be made into, Sheriff?”

“Ma’am, we’ve been over that here for months,” Davis said. “There ain’t a brand in this part of the country like that. Not one it could be done with, not anywhere easy.”

“There’s one brand,” she insisted gently. “I refer to the brand that Buff Colker has registered.”

Ward happened to have his eyes on Colker, and he saw the man start as if struck with a whip. His head jerked around, and hatred blazed in his eyes, hatred and fear. But then the fear was gone.

“Colker ain’t got no brand!” Davis said, frowning. “Nor no cattle I know of.”

“He has, though, Sheriff.” Ruth glanced at Ward, then away. “I checked with Austin. He has a Box Triangle registered there. Any child could make a Slash Seven into a Box Triangle.