Gather My Horses (19 page)

Fielding recognized the tender as Prew, a beardless person with a bulldog face and a trunk that went down like a barrel from the shoulders to the hips. Fielding had heard of women who worked and lived their whole lives as men, among men, without anyone knowing the difference, and he wondered if Prew was one of these. The camp tender was not unfriendly, just offish in an intangible way, so Fielding preferred to unload the supplies and be gone.

“Whatcha got?” asked Prew, in the same harsh voice.

“Salt in the first one, grain in the second, provisions in the other three, my stuff on top.”

Prew said, “Get out of the way” to the dog, then came around to stand by as Fielding untied the knots.

In a few minutes, Fielding was emptying the panniers. The camp tender handled fifty-pound sacks of salt and sixty-pound sacks of grain with no trouble, and the process moved right along. When Fielding had all the camp goods unloaded, he distributed his own gear and got things tightened down again.

He looked at the sun, which had moved over but
was not slipping yet. “Plenty of time left,” he said. “If I can water these horses, I can get started back.”

“Good enough,” said Prew. “Glad you made it. Sheep was runnin' low on salt.”

As Fielding put the sheep camp behind him, he was glad to be on his way. He didn't mind sheep, though sometimes the tallowy smell hung in his nostrils, and he didn't mind sheepherders. They worked for their living, and they took good care of their horses, fed them well and hardly ever pushed them to more than a fast walk. All the same, he was relieved to have this job done and to be traveling light.

He made good time and was able to camp in the same spot as the night before. He didn't get the horses picketed until sundown, and when he did, he paused to appreciate the yellow-and-orange sky above the rim as the shadows laid a velvet softness on the rocks and grass and trees along the slope.

He fed the last of his own grain to the horses in the morning, and he had them all watered and loaded before the day had warmed up. With the sun at his back, he led the pack string out of camp. Before long the trail curved so that the sunlight fell on his left side, and without the benefit of a breeze, he continued sweating. He hoped for a breeze up on top.

Without dismounting he rested the horses for a couple of minutes before starting up the grade. The trail was not very steep to begin with, but after the first quarter-mile stretch it made a turn and began to climb at a sharper pitch. The horses behind him snorted and blew, and their hooves
crunched in the hard, grainy path as the party moved uphill in order.

Fielding gazed at the sandstone wall he was traveling through. Tiny ledges supported tufts of grass and small bushes. Cedar trees grew in narrow clefts. Up where the trail turned again, the rock that had seemed like a gateway loomed on the right. If a man watched the land close up for too long, things seemed to move on their own, so he let his eyes rove around. He looked across empty space at other sections of the wall. He shifted in the saddle and watched the horses and their packs laboring up the slope behind him. His eyes came back to the trail ahead, and still a rock seemed to move.

He stopped the buckskin, a habit of second nature when he saw something out of place. He had a full awareness that this was a poor place to stop the horses, where they would have to stand leaning forward and work to keep from slipping on the loose surface. But rocks did not move.

He slid from the saddle, wrapped the lead rope around the saddle horn, and lowered the reins to the ground. The trail was barely wide enough for him to walk sideways past the horses, but he needed to get to the second set of panniers. The movement he had seen was up the trail on his right, beyond the turret-shaped rock. If someone had ducked out of sight, the person would have a hard time seeing what the delay was. He would have to wait.

Fielding reached into the pannier and pulled out a burlap sack. After making sure that it was open at both ends, he edged back to the first packhorse, the gray one. Crouching, he lifted the front left foot of the horse and slipped it through the open sack.
Bunching the burlap so that it resembled a sash or large band, he twisted it once, twice, three times, then fitted the other hoof through the opening at the other end.

With the horse hobbled, he backed out and stood up. He let out a long breath and hoped everything held. The buckskin was good at staying ground-hitched, and between the lead rope and the hobbles, Fielding hoped to have this train pretty well stalled where it was.

He unstrapped his spurs and put them in the pannier where he had taken out the burlap sack. Feeling around, he laid hold of a length of quarter-inch rope. With it in his hand, he made his way to the end of the line and tied the sorrel to the back end of the dark horse. Then he went around the sorrel and crossed the trail. After drawing his six-gun, he moved to the base of the rock tower and peered over. A small canyon fell away, steep but not impossible. If he could get around the formation without dislodging too much loose rock, he might be able to come up on someone. Meanwhile, he hoped nothing would spook the horses.

Once over the edge, he saw a game trail about fifteen yards below. It looked like his best bet. He picked his way down to the trail and, leaning in toward the declivity of the canyon, took slow, quiet steps forward. He knew that sounds carried upward in places like this, so he kept an eye out for rocks that would slip beneath his feet.

Things always looked different from below. He could not see the trail above, only the rocks that overlooked it. He had no idea which crevice, if any, might hold a man in waiting.

The heat of the sun was stronger here, where it reflected off the rocks and crumbling soil. The smell of sage and dust came to his nostrils. A fly landed on the back of his sweating hand, and he made a small motion to shake it away. A velvet orange ant climbed across an open space of dirt an arm's length away. Tufts of goat-beard grass held on to small knobs of earth, and daggerlike clumps of yucca rose at eye level. The rocks passed above him.

Though it seemed like an hour, he knew it had been but five minutes since he had slipped away from the trail. He squinted in the heat. Then as he looked up he stopped in midstep and set his foot straight down. Above in the rocks he saw a pair of scuffed brown boots sticking out of the legs of a pair of brown canvas trousers. A man was still waiting.

Fielding passed below, taking more care than ever to keep from making noise. In another minute he could no longer see back around a buttress of rock that jutted out, but he marked the spot in his mind. Now he looked for a way to climb out. He holstered his gun and forged ahead.

Another three or four minutes took him up out of the canyon on his left and onto the ledge, where a faint breeze cooled the sweat on his face. He was still not up on the flat itself, but the trail was not so steep here. He sidestepped down to the trail itself. Staying close to the edge where the grass grew and where the rocks would keep him from being seen, he worked his way back. After about sixty yards, he climbed up onto a sandstone ledge. From there he walked forward in a crouch, with his hat tipped to keep the sun out of his eyes.

When he came to a crevice, the man was not there. If he had not sneaked away, he was in the next one. Fielding eased down into the opening, came up on the other side, and crossed the next rocky surface with his gun drawn. As the crevice came into view, the scuff of Fielding's boot heel caused the man to jerk around and sit up in a kneeling position.

Fielding would have recognized him sooner if had been wearing his black hat, but he was wearing an older gray one with a smaller crown and brim. Between that and his black vest and dust-colored work shirt, the man looked like a giant horsefly. As Fielding focused on the shaded face, he saw that the usually dull-lidded eyes were open in surprise, and the fellow's mouth hung open. Now Fielding had an answer to the question of whether Foote had gone north with the harvest crew.

“What are you lookin' for?” asked Fielding.

“Nothin' much.”

“That's not what it seems like.”

Foote regained some of his arrogance right away. “You don't own this place,” he said.

“Neither do you.” Fielding waved his six-gun. “I don't like someone lyin' in wait for me on the trail.”

“How do you know what I was doing?”

“Don't act stupid on me. Get up out of there, and keep your hand away from your gun.”

“Who do you think you are, giving me orders?”

“You know damn well who I am, or you wouldn't be hiding here. Now get up.”

The sluggard rose to his feet.

“Now climb down onto the trail here.”

“What for?”

“For a while. Now move.”

The other man looked at the gun and did as he was told. With pistol in hand, Fielding scooted and jumped down to face him.

The big man tipped his head back and to one side. “What are you goin' to do now?”

Fielding holstered his gun. “I'm going to tell you something. I don't know what you're up to, but I don't like someone spying on me. Last trip I went on, I had a man get killed.”

“Then you ought to be careful.”

“If I wasn't, I wouldn't have gotten the drop on you. This time's a warning. I hope there isn't a next time, but if there is—”

Foote raised his head again and looked past Fielding. The sound of horse hooves caused Fielding to turn around, and again he saw something that didn't match at first. Coming down the trail on one horse and leading another was George Pence, his high-crowned hat and blocky form in full sun.

Fielding kept his eye on the rider. As long as the man kept his hand on the reins of the horse he was leading, he wasn't likely to draw his gun.

No one spoke until the horses came forward and stopped, at which time Pence called out in a loud voice, “Well, if it ain't the packer, out here on foot. What's gotcha down?”

Fielding watched the man's hand as he answered, “Does this lunk ride with your outfit now?”

“Might be. Why should you care?”

“I caught him hiding here, waitin' for me to come up the trail.”

Pence gave a hollow laugh. “Oh, go on. His horse
got away from him, and I told him to wait here in the shade while I went and got it.”

“Did you tell him that people get shot when things go wrong?”

Pence's face tightened. “What do you mean by that?”

Fielding had a good hunch that Pence thought he was referring to Mahoney, but he decided to leave that part unsaid. “I told him one of my men got killed on the trail. I didn't tell him you were there, but now that it looks like he rides with you, maybe he should know. The next time, it might be the other way around.”

“This man's new at this work,” said Pence. “That's how his horse got away. But if someone pulls a gun on him, he's got a right to shoot back.”

“Anyone does.” Fielding tossed a casual glance at the man in question. “He'd do better to keep his gun in his holster, though, and work on the cow-punchin' part.”

Now Foote spoke. “I'll take you on any time, mister horseman, and fists is my favorite way.”

“Hope for the best,” said Fielding. “If I was to wish something for you, it would be that you found another outfit to ride for. Unless you like to look for trouble, which maybe you do.”

“I don't need your advice.”

“But you'd do well to take it. This outfit shoots and gets shot at, and I don't know how much of that you've got in you.” The other man did not answer, so Fielding turned to Pence. “Be careful about what you say or do around this one,” he said. “Sooner or later, he might turn stool pigeon on you.”

Pence tipped his head, with a slow motion of his
chin. “Worry about your own problems, and I'll worry about mine.”

Fielding went back to his horses. Seeing nothing out of order, he put on his spurs, took the hobbles off the first packhorse, and got the string moving uphill again. He did not see the other two men on his way to the top, and once he was out on the flats, he saw only grass and sagebrush for miles around.

The valley lay before him as he paused before taking the pack string down. Everything looked in place, from Lodge to Roe to Selby, down to the railroad line and the town, and off to the north across undulating grassland to the Argyle headquarters, where punchers came and went. Fielding turned in the saddle, saw the horses and packs in order, and touched a heel to the buckskin. The horse shifted and sidestepped his way down the gash in the rim, coming out at the bottom where the choke-cherries on the left were turning red.

As usual, the horses seemed to know they were on the last stretch. The buckskin picked up his feet, and the rest fell in at the same fast walk. Fielding pulled down the brim of his hat to shade out the midafternoon sun. One stop at the livery stable, and he would be on his way to camp.

As he turned into the main street of town, Fielding saw two horses tied in front of the post office. They looked like the horses he had seen Adler and Cedric riding when they came down the street in Chugwater. The dark horse carried a scabbard with a rifle. Fielding took a closer look in the shade of the overhang, and there sat Cedric on the bench,
opening a letter with what looked like a paper knife. His yellowish white hair was conspicuous in the subdued light. At that moment, Adler walked out of the post office empty-handed and made a small wave of greeting. Fielding waved in return.

The two men were still there when Fielding came back from the livery with the two fresh horses tied to the end of the string. Adler in his white shirt and brown hat and vest stood close to the street and seemed to be taking stock of Fielding's horses. Cedric was perusing the letter.

Fielding thought it might be an opportune moment to call Adler's hand in front of Cedric. He reined the horse toward the sidewalk and dismounted before he had a chance to talk himself out of it.