Dorothy Garlock (31 page)

After the two men shook hands, Smith glanced at the other man Sant had failed to introduce. He was loosening the cinch on his saddle.

“Billy’s been saving you some supper. He said you’d be in today. Come on in and put your feet under the table.”

“I take horse now.” Plenty Mad crowded between the two tall men and took the lead rope from Sant’s hand. “You stand, you gab, you don’t care horse tired, damn you.”

Sant laughed. “That crazy Indian will never change. Be
careful with that horse, you ugly little fart,” he called. “Are you sure you know which end to feed?”

“I know end that shits. I feed other end. Damn you kiss my ass. I ain’t crazy. Plenty Mad one smart Injun. It’s damn dry up north. Big fire come like big herd a buffer. You crazy or you listen to Plenty Mad.”

“What’s he talking about?”

“He’s got a bug in his bonnet. He thinks there’ll be a fire because it’s dry. He been haranguing me about it ever since I got back.”

“He’s right about it being dry in the upper Bighorns. Been plenty of rain south. Elk are coming down to feed. Grass in our canyon is knee-high. What’s going on with old Maud? The place is lit up like she was having a ball.”

While they waited for Rice and the other man to take care of their horses, Smith told Sant about Jo Bell and Charlie. He mentioned Willa as a woman traveling with them. He told about finding Maud with a broken leg, getting the doctor out to set it and hiring Willa to take care of her.

“The house hasn’t been touched in six years. Mice and rats were taking over. Caught two rats last night. They had come up the pipes into that inside privy Oliver put in. I sent Plenty Mad to fetch Inez. She’s got a handle on things.”

“Now ain’t that rich? Old Maud’s hamstrung and has to let a
low-life
like Inez do for her.” Sant laughed a dry humorless laugh. “Bet she’s fit to be tied.”

Inside the cookshack, Smith introduced Charlie to Sant, Rice and to the younger man Rice called Vince, who sank down in a chair at the end of the table and watched and listened.

Rice was a gray-haired man, stocky and solid. The other man was no more than twenty, whip-lash thin, and wound tighter than a watch spring. He was a good-looking boy with sandy hair and blue eyes. The skin was broken under a dark
bruise on his right cheekbone. When he ate, he chewed on the left side. He kept his eyes on his plate and did not contribute to the conversation.

“Cliff made a offer on forty head of mules.” Sant made the announcement between mouthfuls of biscuit covered with gravy.

“Did you take it?” Smith asked.

“Yup.”

“It’ll be a job cutting them out.”

“I’ll get me a crew of Cheyenne—”

“—Shit!” The word came from Vince at the end of the table. Sant continued to talk as if he hadn’t been interrupted.

“—from the camp down on Casper Creek. Talked to ’em on my way up here.”

“I never saw the like of that silver lobo,” Cliff said. “That’s a horse and a half.”

“He is that,” Smith’s green eyes shone with enthusiasm. “We’ve been watching him for years. He’s got a lead mare that’s a sight to behold, too. She’s silver gray with a white-star blaze on her forehead. Her long mane and tail shine like gold in the sunlight.”

“I’m surprised that every horse hunter in the country isn’t out there trying to catch them.” Cliff held his cup out for more coffee when Billy brought the pot to the table.

“That stallion or his lead mare must not be caught or harmed in any way. The man that attempts it will get his ass full of lead.
Any
man,” Sant repeated and looked down the table to where Vince’s head was bent over his plate.

“Folks in these parts, even the Indians, leave them be,” Smith explained. “The silver lobo’s selective in his choice of mates. Who knows but someday he might produce an outstanding breed. His offspring now are fast and durable and can be broken if caught young. The silver lobo would die before he would surrender to captivity.”

“The right breeder would pay a pile of money for a horse like that,” Cliff said.

Not liking the way the conversation was going, Sant pushed back his chair and got to his feet.

“It pains me to do so, but I’ll take to the water tank and wash off the odor of my honest labor.”

“Don’t do it on my account. You can sleep in the barn.” Smith grinned and threw him a hunk of yellow lye soap he snatched from the wash bench. “Make yourselves to home, fellows. I’d better follow that old boy and see that he don’t drown. He’s not used to water.”

*  *  *

In a room above a saloon in Buffalo, George Fuller lay face down across the bed. The day after Smith Bowman had shot him, he had parted company with Abel Coyle and headed for town and old Doc Goodman, hoping the old man would be sober enough to help him. On arriving, he was told that the old doctor had died but that a new city doctor had an office above the bank.

George made his way painfully up the steps alongside the building. After telling the doctor he had been creased by a stray bullet, he had endured the agony of having threads from his britches picked out of the wound and having it cleaned with a solution of alcohol. He lied again when he told the doctor he had been kicked in the crotch by a horse and asked him if any permanent damage had been done to his manly parts.

“Only time will tell,” the doctor said after a careful scrutiny of the injured area.

The statement did nothing to lessen George’s fear that he would never again know the pleasure a whore could give him. He vowed that someday soon he would make Smith Bowman pay for what he had done. He thanked God that Coyle had
gone on to Sheridan, for he would have been sure to spread the story of his humiliation. Come to think on it, he’d get even with that son-of-a-bitch too.

George rolled off the bed and went to the window. He’d been here three days, going out only to get a bottle of whiskey and food to bring back to the room because it was too painful to sit down in a restaurant and eat.

The town consisted of a double row of weather-beaten, false-fronted buildings, some of which had never been painted. Most of the scattered dwellings were of stone and log. A few houses had been built of sawed lumber as was the two-story hotel. A stone building, square and solid, was identified by the sign: BUFFALO BANK.

George watched the activity on the street. It was dusk and a few lights had been lit to dispel the gloom. Two women in short, low-necked dresses crossed the street and went though the bat-wing doors of the saloon. The shouts of welcome and male laughter drifted into the open window.

One of the women had black hair and reminded George of the Frank girl. Not that he needed a reminder. She had been constantly in his thoughts. The first sight of her had aroused him so much that his flesh had instantly become hard and painful. She had been hot for him too. He could tell by the way she had looked at him out of the corners of her magnificent eyes.

He knew now that he had scared her the day he had tried to pull her off the wagon. He would not make that mistake again, but he would have her. He was more determined than ever now. If any woman would bring his member back to life, it would be that black-haired, violet-eyed vixen.

As soon as he could ride, he was heading for Eastwood Ranch.

20

T
he object of George Fuller’s thoughts was also looking out the window.

Jo Bell watched the activity around the barn and the bunkhouse as she had been doing for the last two days. At dusk three men had arrived driving a herd of horses. She saw Smith greet one of them as if he were an old friend and discounted him as being one she would approach to help her.

She turned her attention to the other two men. Both wore range clothes. One had gray hair, rounded shoulders and was thick in the middle. The other man was young, but not as young or as awkward as Charlie. His hat was black, flat-crowned, and held beneath his jaw by a loose thong. His vest was of black cowhide and he wore a tied-down gun. Moreover the man Smith had greeted so warmly was ignoring him, which could mean that he was an outsider without connections here at the ranch.

Jo Bell fingered the rings and the watch she had taken from the room across from Maud’s. Charlie had refused to give her the money her father had left, but what she had found was worth far more. Papa had said that she and Charlie were
the only blood kin Uncle Oliver had and that he would be sure to see that they were provided for in his will. She didn’t really consider taking the rings and watch to be stealing. They were hers by right.

She wouldn’t dwell on the right or wrong of it now. Uncle Oliver was gone, and that old woman across the hall wasn’t going to last long. Maybe even tonight she would have one of her fits and pass on. Lord, she hoped so. She had listened outside the kitchen door and heard the doctor and Willa talking about Aunt Maud’s fits. It wasn’t fair that that nasty old woman would have all this when she had nothing.

She began to fantasize what she would do when the ranch was hers. She’d sell it, of course, buy a nice big house in town, and hire servants to wait on her. It would be just as Papa had planned. Papa! Why’d he have to go and get himself killed? With him here it would have been so easy.

As soon as the men went into the lighted cookshack, Jo Bell cautiously opened the door and tiptoed down the hall. She paused to listen at the door to Maud’s room and heard Willa talking to her aunt. At the bottom of the stairs she paused again to listen. All was quiet. She scurried down the hall to the big double doors and opened one just wide enough to allow her to slip out. She stepped out onto the veranda and quietly closed the door behind her.

Smith was mistaken if he thought he could keep her shut up in that room. The thought of getting even with him was never far from her mind. Damn his hide! She would find Fuller and tell him to kill Smith. He would do it, too. Papa had told her she had the
power
to make men so crazy about her they would climb to the moon if she asked them to. Jo Bell giggled happily, then sobered. Papa hadn’t told her how to handle men like Smith.
Why didn’t you, Papa? Why didn’t
you?

Keeping to the shadows, she worked her way around the
house and across the open space between it and the ranch buildings. In the shadow of the bunkhouse she moved along the wall to the cookshack and peered in the window. The men were seated at a long table. She could see their faces clearly.

The young man had a bruise and cut on his face, but he was still as handsome as she knew he would be. He had a wild, reckless look about him that made Jo Bell’s heart skip a beat. His eyes flicked past the window as he turned an icy gaze on the man with reddish hair. He must be the one Smith had greeted like a long, lost friend. Jo Bell ducked down. Charlie had turned his head toward the window. She waited and held her breath. If her brother had seen her, he would be sure to come outside and stir up a fuss.

A minute passed. Jo Bell sighed with relief. She had to find a place where she could watch and wait for a chance to talk to the man with the cut cheek. Running lightly across the yard, she sank down on the ground beneath a growth of sumac that ran along the fence. She had a view of the cookshack as well as the bunkhouse door.

She hadn’t been there long when Smith’s friend came out and then Smith. They went around the corner toward the cabin set back behind the buildings. Charlie had told her that Smith and Billy Coe lived there. It wasn’t a very big house, certainly not something she would be interested in living in. Built of logs, it had a peaked roof that overhung in front supported by two heavy posts. It was like any number of crude homesteads they had passed on their way here.

The gray-haired man came out, lit a cigarette and sat down on the bench in front of the bunkhouse. A few minutes later the young man joined him. Jo Bell could see Charlie helping Billy clean up after the meal. The men on the bench talked in low tones. Jo Bell could just hear the murmur of their voices. She hoped and prayed the young man wouldn’t go inside. When the old man stood, dropped his cigarette butt
and ground it out with his heel, she held her breath for fear the other man would follow.