Longhorn Empire (12 page)

“Would be taking too much of a chance to lead them away,” he decided. “Let ’em run loose. If they drift back home, it’ll puzzle
the hellions, and mebbe scare ’em a mite, but I don’t think they’ll tie ’em up with what happened. Not soon enough to do them
any good, anyhow.”

Mounting Smoke, he rode swiftly for home. Twilight was falling when he reached the ranch-house. He ate his supper, talked
with Webb for a while and then retired to his room in the casa, ostensibly to sleep. But as soon as things were quiet, he
slipped out again. In the tool shed he selected a pair of heavy wire cutters.

“Here’s where I become a law breaker,” he muttered. “Got a feeling it’s justified, though. No other way I can figure to get
the lowdown on that sidewinder. Taking a chance, but there’s no way out that I can see.”

Saddling Smoke, he rode south by west again. The night was dark and silent when he approached the wire that enclosed Norman
Kane’s Flying V spread. He rode slowly along the fence
peering and listening. Finally he reached a spot where a number of cattle were bunched. He drew rein and dismounted.

Brant knew he was taking a chance. If Kane’s riders happened to be patrolling the fence and sighted him, he could expect no
mercy. And there was the disquieting thought that an overlooked shotgun bomb might be planted somewhere in the vicinity, although
he rather doubted it. He had a feeling the fence was not being patrolled. If he was right in his suspicions of the Flying
V owner, he was sure it was not. But there was the catch. He might be all wrong in his surmise. And if he was, and Kane was
vigilantly guarding his wire, John Webb would likely need a new foreman tomorrow.

Leaving Smoke standing with dangling reins, Brant approached the fence. The grazing long-horns raised heads and eyed him suspiciously.
He could see the starlight glinting on their rolling eyes. Some snorted and moved farther from the fence. An old bull rumbled
deep in his throat, as if considering the advisability of a charge. Brant set the cutters against the top wire.

The snip-snip of the tool sounded loud in the stillness. Brant paused a moment. The night remained silent. He went to work
again, cutting the strands from top to bottom. He moved to the next post and repeated the per for mance. The wire fell to
the ground, leaving a wide gap in the fence. Nothing else happened. Brant slipped back to his horse, expectantly.

Shadowy and grotesque in the wan starlight, the cows began moving toward the gap, following an instinct that seems inherent
in all cattle.
Brant watched them stream through. He turned Smoke and rode back the way he had come, pushing the moros as hard as was advisable.
He realized he had no time to waste.

The Running W hands didn’t take kindly to being roused from their slumbers in the dark hours before the dawn, but a few words
of explanation shot them wide awake and rarin’ to go. They saddled up in a jiffy and thundered south by west toward the cut
in Norman Kane’s wire.

It was already full of daylight when they sighted the Flying V fence. A number of cows had streamed through the gap and were
scattered about on the Running W range. The cowboys rode among them, peering at brands with shrewd experienced eyes. Finally
Brant singled out four critters for special examination. These were herded together and headed for the Running W casa.

“We got to june along,” Brant told his men. “If we got caught down here, there’ll be some prime gun slinging before we’re
ready for it; and if I’ve slipped up in this business, we’ll find ourselves on a mighty hot spot.”

Old John Webb was in the ranch house yard when the troop arrived, driving the protesting cows before them. He let out a bellow
of astonishment.

“So you work dodgers have decided to go in for a little wideloopin’ for a change, eh?” he roared.
“You take them Flyin’ V cows right back where they belong! What’s the big notion, anyhow?”

“They’re not Flying V cows, Uncle John, they’re Running W cows,” Brant grinned as he dismounted.

Old John glared at him. “So!” he rumbled. “I always figgered you’d crack up sooner or later—too darn much book larnin!’ Runnin’
W cows! I can’t trust my own eyesight, I suppose?”

“Not this time you can’t,” Brant chuckled. He turned to his men.

“It’s a shame to have to cash in the poor critters, but there’s no help for it,” he said. “Okay, shoot ’em and get the hides
off.”

While the astounded Webb looked on speechless, the order was obeyed. Soon four green hides were stretched on the ground, hairy
side down. Brant silently pointed to the “evidence.”

All of the four cattle chosen by Brant were young steers, none much beyond the calf stage. An experienced cowman knows the
brand on a calf is written plainly inside the skin; one burned on later is less definite, and, if the animal is getting old,
is sometimes not visible at all. Courts recognize the validity of the testimony of experienced range men concerning the markings
on a dried hide.

And on the four green skins stretched before his eyes, John Webb saw the indubitable marking of the earlier burned Running
W brand!

Webb, his eyes literally starting from his head, turned to Brant in bewilderment.

“Who—what—how—” he sputtered.

“One of the slickest jobs of brand blotting I ever saw, that’s all,” the foreman returned. “Don’t you
see how it was done? Half of a Running W, with a little altering of the horizontal bars, is just about the same as a Flying
V. Remember when we met Norman Kane the first time that day up at Doran’s Crossing. You remarked to him that your burn, the
Running W, started like this but was twice over. A pretty good description of the Running W when set against the Flying V.
Now recollect how Kane’s branding iron is shaped. On each side of the letter is a flat ‘ear.’ When the brand is stamped on
the hide, the burn left is just like this—”

Brant stooped and traced the mark in the dust at his feet.

“See it? Okay. Now blot half of the Running W, set the V carefully over the other half and the flat ear completely effaces
the blot. Then just a mite of work with a running iron—a cinch ring or a piece of telegraph wire would do the trick—and there’s
a perfect Flying V. After a few days, not even a careful examination on the outside of the hide, would show that the brand
had been altered. But yesterday, I ran onto those two blotters just as they were finishing their chore. Even then, if they
hadn’t given the game away by waving me ’round, I doubt if I would have caught on. They could have said they were just branding
an unmarked critter they had reason to believe belonged to their outfit. It was only after I leaned down close to examine the
brand that I caught on. They worked a mite fast and hadn’t quite covered the blotted half of the W as they would have if they
hadn’t been interrupted.”

“How about the ear-marks?” asked Webb.

“Another thing that worked out prime for
Kane,” Brant replied. “Our ear-mark is an under-split. His is an under-bit.”

Brant again drew a diagram in the dust. “Two swipes with a knife blade and the change is made. You’ll notice the ear-marks
on these hides are fresh cut.”

Old John’s face set in lines hard as chiselled granite. “Okay,” he said, “wait till I get the rig on my horse. We’ll ride
down there and clean out that nest of sidewinders.”

But Brant instantly vetoed the proposition. “No,” he said, “we won’t. We’ll take care of this matter in a law abiding way,
so that there will be no comeback. We’ll take these hides to the sheriff at Tascosa and lay our evidence on the boards. We’ve
got all we need. There’ll be plenty of cows on Kane’s range with altered brands. I counted nearly a dozen besides these four
in that bunch I turned out last night. We’ve got Kane up against a stacked deck. The sheriff will deputize us to assist him.
We’ll catch them flat-footed and I figure there won’t even be any resistance, which will all be to the good. No sense in getting
somebody plugged or cashed in when we don’t have to. We’ll do this right.”

“Reckon you’re talkin’ sense, per usual,” Webb admitted. “Okay, let’s head for town. Pack up them hides and bring ’em along.”

In Tascosa, Sheriff Willingham grimly examined the four hides. “It’s an open-and-shut case,” he said. “We’ll ride down there
and take ’em in. I’ll swear in you fellers as a sheriff’s posse. We’d oughta catch ’em flatfooted, and I figger we won’t have
a mite of trouble.”

However, the sheriff was considerably wrong in his “figgerin’.” Just then one of the Running W cowhands hurried in.

“Boss,” he said to Brant, “them two jiggers what own the Posthole—Doran and Hansen— just rode out of town skalleyhootin’.
They forded the river and headed south by west. Sure were foggin’ the dust. I figgered you’d oughta know about it.”

Brant instantly swung into action. “Those two hellions are in cahoots with Kane, of that I’m sure,” he told Willingham. “They’ve
caught on, somehow, to why we’re here. They’re headed down there to warn Kane and the bunch. If we don’t get right on their
tail, the whole lot of them will slide across into New Mexico.”

“Let’s go!” barked the sheriff.

Five minutes later the posse thundered out of town, with excited citizens thronging the streets. The waters of the river boiled
to foam as they stormed through the shallows. Then with irons drumming the hard surface of the trail, they raced south by
west. At the crest of each rise they stared anxiously ahead, but many miles were covered before they sighted Doran and Hansen
pushing their horses up a long slope.

“They got a head start, but we’re gainin’ on ’em,” grunted the sheriff.

Brant nodded, estimating the distance yet to go and the lead the hard riding pair enjoyed. For a moment, confident in Smoke’s
great speed and endurance, he contemplated pushing on ahead of the posse, but reluctantly dismissed the notion. He knew Sheriff
Willingham would not approve.
Also, he had nothing definite on Doran and Hansen that would justify slinging lead at them, and he knew that if he came within
rifle range, a gun fight would be inevitable.

Mile after mile they travelled, the horses wet with sweat, their nostrils flaring, and their breath sobbing and panting.

“If those hellions down there have time to fork their bronks, we’re done,” Brant told himself. “Our cayuses are going to be
just about finished by the time we make the Flying V.”

But before the Flying V wire came into sight, Brant’s pulses were pounding with exultation. Doran and Hansen were now within
long rifle range, and their lead was being cut down by the minute. Plainly, their mounts were giving out. Less than six hundred
yards separated pursuers and pursued when the pair swerved their staggering horses through the gate and flung themselves out
of their saddles in front of the Flying V ranch house. From the crest of a rise, the posse could see figures running wildly
about; but when they had negotiated the far side of the sag and again sighted the casa, not a man was in sight. The house
itself lay ominously quiet, with closed door and shuttered windows.

Sheriff Willingham halted his troop just outside gunshot range. “They’re holed up in there, all right,” he said. “Okay, you
fellers wait here. I’ll ride ahead and have a pow-wow with ’em.”

“I’ll ride with you,” Brant offered.

“No you won’t,” the sheriff declined emphatically. “You’ll stay right where you are. If those hellions are out to get anybody,
it’s you. I figger they’ll hardly take a shot at me alone. Wouldn’t
gain ’em anything but a murder charge which, so far as I know, there isn’t, yet.”

He rode slowly forward, his badge of office gleaming on the front of his sagging vest. A few yards from the gate he reined
in.

“Norman Kane!” he shouted.

For a moment there was silence, then Kane’s clear voice replied:

“Well, what is it?”

“I have a warrant for you, Kane,” the sheriff called back.

“Okay, come ahead and serve it, if you figger it’s healthy,” Kane’s voice jeered.

Willingham moved his horse forward a pace. A rifle cracked inside the house. A bullet whistled past the sheriff’s head.

“The next one won’t miss,” Kane warned.

The sheriff reined in his horse. “You can’t get away with it, Kane,” he shouted. “If you won’t come peaceably, you’ll come
anyhow.”

“Mebbe,” Kane replied, “but I figger we’ll thin out your bunch considerable before you bust in.”

“Okay,” the sheriff answered quietly. “You’ve asked for it, now you’ll get it.”

With this ultimatum, he wheeled his horse and rode back to the waiting posse.

“Get that fence down and ride in,” he ordered. “We can slide up purty close to the house through the brush. Four men work
around to the back. Must be a back door to that casa. Don’t let ’em slip out that way. Okay, let’s go.”

Ropes were flipped to the tops of fence posts, a section of the wire was razed. The possemen rode through, dismounted and tethered
their horses in a thicket. Then they began to creep forward, taking
advantage of all cover that offered. A shot rang out, another and another. Bullets whined past, clipping leaves and twigs.

“Got loopholes between the logs,” the sheriff grunted. “Must have figgered on somethin’ like this from the start.” He glanced
at the sun. It was low in the west.

“Not long till dark,” he said. “That’s what they’re playin’ for—time. They figger they can slide out once it gets real dark,
and give us the slip. All right, you fellers, see if you can do something to slow up that gun slingin’ before somebody gets
hurt.”

The possemen opened fire, aiming at the chinks between the logs. The fire was returned from the ranch house. Sheriff Willingham
swore angrily.

“We’re just about as close as we can hope to get,” he told Brant. “And it ain’t close enough. If we try to rush ’em, across
that open space, we’re goin’ to lose men, and there’s no guarantee we can bust in even if some of us make it to the door.
The hellions wouldn’t neglect that angle. Them planks look thick, and chances are they’re double or triple with iron bars
across ’em.”

Brant was studying the ranch house. “I got a notion,” he exclaimed suddenly. “Be back in a mite, Cape.”

Brant began working his way back through the brush. In the thicket where the horses were tethered he paused. He located a
tough withe which he cut and trimmed. He notched the ends, fumbled a bit of string from his saddle pouch, bent the stave and
strung it. He had a fairly serviceable bow. Three more slender withes provided
arrows which he trimmed with care, weighting one end of each with a bit of stone wedged in a notch. He removed his neckerchief,
tearing it into three strips. These he dampened slightly at a trickle of water nearby. Then, with his teeth, he wrenched the
bullets from several cartridges. He sprinkled the powder over the slightly damp cloths and rubbed it into the fabric. He spread
the cloth in a patch of sunlight and let it dry for a few minutes. Then he carefully wrapped a strip around the head of each
arrow. With this contraption under his arm, he made his way back to the sheriff. The possemen were still keeping up a desultory
fire, which was answered from the casa. The uneasy whine of passing lead punctuated the reports.

“What in blazes?” demanded the sheriff as Brant crouched down beside him.

“The Indians used to do it,” Brant chuckled. “If they could, I don’t see why we can’t.”

The sheriff understood instantly. “Fire arrows!” he exclaimed. “By gosh, I’ve a notion it would work, if you could drop one
onto the roof. Those roof boards and shingles are dry as tinder; they’d oughta burn easy. But son, you couldn’t ever shoot
an arrow onto the roof from here with that thing.”

“I know it,” Brant conceded. “But do you see that big boulder over past that string of bushes? If I was behind that rock I
could do it easy.”

“Uh-huh,” agreed the sheriff, “but you ain’t there, and a mighty slim chance of gettin’ there with them hellions in the house
watchin’ every move. You’d be plugged before you got half way to that rock.”

“Mebbe,” Brant conceded, “but I figure it’s
worth riskin’. Pass the word to the boys to cut loose with everything they got on those chinks. Some of ’em are bound to put
a slug or two through, and with lead whizzing around ’em, I’ve a notion those gents in the house won’t be up to their best
at shooting.”

“You’re taking one awful chance, but okay,” the sheriff agreed dubiously. “May save a heap of shootin’ later on, and I reckon
it’s about our only chance to bag the lot of ’em. Go to it!”

The word was passed along and the possemen redoubled their fire. Slugs pounded the logs. Brant saw dust and clay fly from the
chinks between the logs in several places. With the firing at its height, he slipped from behind his shelter and ran at top
speed for the boulder, bending almost double, weaving and zig-zagging. He had covered more than half the distance when the
owlhoots in the house discovered him.