Guardians of the Sage (6 page)

“Yes. And——?”

Dan tossed away his stick and stood up.

“Eph sold out to the Bar S on Monday,” he muttered gloomily. “Old Slick-ear's line is now right here in the valley. He's driven a wedge right into the middle of us—and you'll see plenty Bar S steers in here before you git your hair cut ag'in.”

Montana did not try to hide his vexation. By advancing the boundary line of Willow Vista into the very heart of Squaw Valley, the Bar S had scored a tactical victory that strengthened their stand immeasurably. He could appreciate the fortitude it took to face the future calmly.

Gene and Brent Crockett, Dan's sons, narrow-hipped six-footers, rode in half an hour later. Both were taciturn, in the way of the mountain breed. If they were surprised to see Montana, they dissembled it.

“The boys have been mavin' some of our stuff onto our new range in the reservation,” Dan explained. “Without the North Fork water I can't keep 'em up here no longer. Course I'm better off than some folks. I had some water rights of my own that the Bar S couldn't grab. But you know how range cattle are, Jim. They get used to waterin' in one place and they'll go back to it in spite of hell. That's where the rub is goin' to come. I suggested to Reb that we put up a line fence and each pay half of the cost.”

“I don't suppose that interested him,” Montana volunteered. “That's not the Bar S game.”

“No, he wouldn't lissen at all. Said he'd keep his stuff on his own range and we'd have to do the same.”

“Darin' us, that's all!” Gene Crockett muttered bitterly. He was the younger of the two boys. “It's a fine law that lets an outfit rob you like that! That water was our'n. Mebbe old man Stall saw it 'fore Pap did. That didn't make it his if he didn't use it. We ain't no better off than we was 'fore they opened up the reservation. Now we got water in one place and range in another, and nothin' short o' God a'mighty can make a steer eat one place and drink another.”

“No use los in' your haid about it,” his father protested. “We got to go easy and figure this thing out.”

“It's all right to talk about takin' things easy, Pap,” the other boy declared soberly, “but Gene's right; you can't swallow every thin' they hand you and pretend to like it. I hazed a cow and her calf out of the North Fork bottoms for over an hour this morning. Like as not she's back there right now. That's what the Bar S wants. They'll catch our stuff trespassing and using their water. Lawsuits will be slapped on us till we're busted. Then we can git out.”

“You said it!” Gene agreed. “Clay Quantrell's got the right idea. If we're goin' to git licked anyhow, let's git licked fightin'! Why wait 'til we're helpless?”

Montana had known the boys for years. Their bitterness was no surprise, but he had expected them to be long-suffering rather than rash under the first prod of the Bar S. Their talk sounded reckless. Since Quantrell's name had come into the conversation, Montana thought he had the explanation.

“That's brave talk, Gene,” he said, “but I'm afraid it won't get us anywhere. We can't shoot this thing out and win. If we want to beat that bunch we've got to outsmart them.”

The boys were not impressed with his logic, but their father agreed with him.

“There can't be any doubt of it,” he said with great deliberation. “Spillin' a lot of blood won't settle this at all. The first thing we got to do is get organized. We're goin' to have a meetin' here towards evenin'. I reckon most of the folks will come.” He glanced at the westering sun. “Gene will take you over to the house and show you where to drop your war-bag, We'll have supper before the crowd comes.”

I
N ADDITION to his sons, Dan had two men on the ranch,—Romero, the Mexican, and Ben Vining, an old-time buckaroo from Nevada. They ate together in the ranch kitchen, Mrs. Crockett doing the cooking.

Eating was a solemn rite that seemed to dry up the wells of conversation.

Before they had finished, people began to arrive. With one or two exceptions they were all related in some way to the Crocketts.

“One or two others to come yet,” Dan told them. “We'll wait a few minutes.”

Quantrell was the last to arrive. He gave Jim a curt nod. His displeasure was evident on learning that Montana had injected himself into the fight and was now riding for the Box C. He had an excuse for his tardiness. Jim thought his horse looked as though it had been ridden hard.

The meeting got under way at last . . . The day had been one to try tempers. A dozen men recounted their verbal clashes with Reb and his men. All agreed that they must stand together.

Dan Crockett spoke at length, advising them to be patient and stay within the law. They listened, but there was no enthusiasm for what he had to say.

Quantrell spoke, fanning their hatred of the Bar S.

“The law's too one-sided for me!” he bellowed. “The other fellow's got it all! We got to take care of this in our own way—without the help of any outsiders!”

Evidently it was what they wanted to hear, for they cheered him when he finished. Montana knew this reference to outsiders was directed at him. He couldn't escape the feeling that the fight was resolving itself into a personal one between Quantrell and himself. His face was stern and uncompromising as he arose and faced them.

“I want to remind you men that when anybody labels me an outsider that you consider the facts,” he began. “I saw this trouble coming long before any of you gave it a thought. If Henry Stall had got the reservation—where would you be now?”

“We'd be on our way out!” Dan exclaimed courageously. “There ain't a man here but has to thank you for what you did, Montana.”

There was muttered approval of this, in which Quantrell did not join. He leaned on the corral gate with sullen defiance in his eyes.

“Well, if I was with you then, I'm with you now,” Montana continued. “And I'm with you all the way. Loose talk almost cost you the reservation—the same sort of talk that refers to me now as an outsider.” His eyes were fixed on Quantrell. A sneer curled the big fellow's mouth. “You've been told that the law was all on the other fellow's side. It's true. And it's the best reason I know for staying clear of it. You've got your homes here. You've got to think of your wives and children. Blood won't help them.”

He paused to let the effect of his words sink in.

“This fight has just begun, and yet, your patience is gone already. You can't win that way! My God, men, where is the iron in you? You haven't lost yet! Don't let yourselves be stampeded into taking the law into your own hands!”

Lance Morrow stepped into the cleared space in front of Jim. He was a little bandy-legged man, nearing seventy, and the father of five strapping sons.

“Montana, I was nursed on a rifle. I've lived with one all my life, but I was taught never to take hit down unless I couldn't git justice no other way. I don't want to take hit down now. My boys feel as I do about hit. But what are we agoin' to do, Montana? Man to man, what hope have we got?”

The old man had put it concretely. That was what they all wanted to know; what hope did they have? They waited anxiously for Montana to answer.

Jim refused to be hurried.

“Well,” he said at last, “I never knew Henry Stall to send bad dollars after good ones when time had proved that he had a losing proposition on his hands. If you stand pat and stick together, you can beat him. He can't consolidate his water unless some one of you sells him land. The man who lets him have one acre is a traitor to you all!”

“A steer needs grass as well as water. It's going to cost the Bar S a lot of money to keep moving their stuff. It won't put any fat on a yearling. And don't forget, they can't keep on driving cattle across your range. That's been threshed out in this county before. The shoe is pinching you now, but it will be the other way around before snow flies.”

His logic swayed the majority of them. They effected an organization of a sort under Dan Crockett's leadership and agreed to act together. Even Quantrell consented to the arrangement. His apparent change of face did not fool Montana. He knew the man was dangerous.

The sun had set before they finished, but no one seemed in a hurry to leave. Jim was talking to Dan and old Lance Morrow when young Gene sounded a warning.

“Somebody comin'!” he called out.

Montana looked up to see four horsemen fording the creek. Once across, they rode up at a hard gallop. Hands strayed toward guns in the waiting crowd. The oncoming men were either part of the Bar S bunch or strangers, and with things as they stood, a stranger was more apt to be an enemy than a friend.

Montana shared the tenseness of the others. A moment later he recognized Reb Russell. Instinctively, the crowd had lined up to face the newcomers. Reb pulled his horse up sharply fifty yards from them and slid to the ground. Without a word to his men, he stalked across the intervening space, a mad fury on him.

Dan stepped out to face him.

“You've come far enough, Reb! I advise you to get back in your saddle and fan it out of here!”

A dozen guns were trained on him, but Reb came on until only ten yards separated them.

“You won't shoot while I'm facing yuh,” he snarled. “You'll wait until I'm lookin' the other way for that.” He saw Montana then. “So you're here, eh? I never thought you'd get down to herdin' with a bunch that would pot a man in the back.”

Foolishly brave, he walked up and down the line, meeting them eye to eye with a sneer on his lips.

“Come on!” he burst out fiercely. “Which one of you potted that boy?”

The surprise his words occasioned caused the crowd to fall back. Men turned to their neighbors for an explanation. Dan and Montana exchanged an uneasy glance, sensing that the thing they had feared and hoped to avoid had already happened.

“Reb, I'll talk for our side,” Dan announced. “I told you yesterday I didn't want any trouble. If it's come, I want to know about it. What's happened?”

Reb tried to glare a hole through him before he answered.

“Picked up one of our boys west of here at the forks on Powder Creek about an hour ago. He was dead when we found him . . . Been shot in the back! Some skunk got him from the rimrocks!”

Montana groaned. “Who was it, Reb?”

“The kid.”

“Billy?” Jim's voice betrayed his emotion.

“Yeah—Billy Sauls, your old buddy. You don't have to look so white about it. You're on the other side of the fence, ain't yuh?”

Montana let the taunt go unrebuked. For the moment he was speechless. The crowd was stunned, too, by the news that a Bar S man had been slain. All their deliberations had come to naught, for beyond doubt the boy had been killed by someone opposed to the Bar S. Being the sons and grandsons of feudists, they knew that only blood could atone for blood.

Old Lance questioned his sons. Dan tried to read the souls of his boys. Brothers looked at each other with suspicion.

“Hits natural to suppose somebody on our side done hit, said Lance, “but mebbe hit ain't so. Mebbe that boy had a personal quarrel with someone.”

“I'll say he did!” Reb thundered. “With a hombre that filled four of our yearlin's full of lead from the same gun that killed him! You can't crawl out of it! One of your pack got him!”

“Men, listen to me!” It was Montana. He had jumped up on the wagon-box Dan had been repairing. His voice was charged with a deadly calmness that was more arresting than all of Reb's vituperation. “You know I'm an old Bar S man. I always found it a good outfit to work for; but I won't takes wages from a man who'll grind his neighbors under his heel and bring misery and poverty to women and children for no better reason than that he can make a few more dollars. All I said here this evening still goes. I'm with you to the finish. This killing hasn't changed that at all. But I don't believe you approve of shooting men in the back. God knows Billy Sauls never fought that way. I don't know who got him, but I aim to find out!”

“You needn't bother,” Reb rasped scornfully. We'll take care of that! There's no need of any more palaverin'. Don't let me catch any of you above the North Fork after to-night!”

Without another word, he turned and stalked back to his horse. The light was failing fast. In a few seconds he and his men were only moving gray smudges bobbing over the sage.

“There'll be hell to pay now,” old Lance muttered prophetically. “Talkin' won't do no good.”

Montana was not listening. He was staring at Quantrell. The longer he started the more certain he became that the big fellow was aware of his scrutiny and was purposely avoiding his eyes.

“He's a tin-horn, and a tin-horn did this job.” Montana could not put the thought away. Quantrell had been the last to arrive. His horse had looked winded.

From where he stood, Jim could see the animal. Even now it looked weary, head drooping. The muzzle of a rifle peeped out of a saddle scabbard.

That rifle suddenly became of absorbing interest to Montana.

“I'm going to have a look at that gun before he pulls out of here,” he promised himself. “If what I'm thinking is correct, it'll be dirty. He'd hardly have stopped to clean it.”

Montana changed his position, moving about without apparent purpose, talking to this man and that, but gradually maneuvering so as to bring him nearer to Quantrell's horse. And now he was certain that Quantrell was watching him.

The big fellow had broken off his conversation with Brent Crockett. If Montana took a step toward the horse, so did Quantrell. It became a game.

“Well, if it's a showdown, let's get it over with,” Jim muttered to himself. Throwing caution to the winds, he strode up to the horse. Quantrell was only a step behind him. It gave Jim time enough to insert the tip of his little finger into the rifle barrel. Quantrell caught him by the wrist as he started to bring his hand away.