the Man from the Broken Hills (1975) (5 page)

I took them in my hand, then tucked them away in my shirt pocket.

Somebody had been at the corral. Somebody had drunk here, but why had they not come by the line-shack? In cattle country, even an enemy would be welcomed at mealtime, and many a cattleman in sheep country had eaten at sheep wagons. In a country where meals and food might be many miles apart, enmity often vanished at the side of the table.

Balch had not hesitated to come to our fire, nor would his men be likely to. Yet somebody had come here and had ridden swiftly away, somebody who had deliberately avoided our line-shack, which everybody in the country was sure to know.

Leading my horse and that of Fuentes, as well as a fresh horse for him, I started back.

Fuentes had suggested that Roger Balch was a trouble hunter, so it was unlikely that he would hesitate to stop by. Nor Balch, either, for that matter. Saddler? I had an idea Saddler spent little time out on the range. What of that other man? The one who seemed somehow familiar?

Irritably, I rode back. There was a lot going on that I did not like. One thing I had done before leaving the corral, and that was to look to see how the tracks had pointed, and they had gone east, a man riding a horse with a nice, even stride ... a horse more carefully shod than many a western horse I'd seen.

"Balch leaves the major alone?" I asked suddenly.

Fuentes glanced at me. "Of course. You do not think--" He broke off and then he said, "Balch may have other ideas. You see, the major has a daughter."

"A daughter?" The thought made no connection and Fuentes saw it, smiling tolerantly.

"The major has a daughter, and the largest outfit anywhere around. And Balch has a son."

"Then--?"

"Of course ... And why not?" Why not, indeed. But where did that leave Barby Ann?

As we moved back what cattle we had, our work was cut out for us. Most of the stock had kind of settled down, but there were two or three hardheaded old mossyhorns who would keep cutting back and trying to head for the breaks, and the worst of all was a lean old cow with one horn growing across, in front of her skull, and one perfectly set for hooking, and she knew it.

We'd had unusually good luck. Time and again I've combed the breaks for cattle on one outfit or another and come up with nothing, or only a few head. Of course, this was the beginning, and it would get tougher as we went along, and the cattle more wary.

Right now, most of them hadn't decided what was happening. Hopefully, by the time they did they'd be at the ranch and mixing with the growing herd on the flat.

Chapter
5

It was sundown before we got in. Danny and Ben Roper were down on the flat with about sixty head. I scanned their gather and then looked over at Fuentes, who had cut in close to me. "Same thing here," I commented. "No young stuff."

Joe Hinge was in front of the bunkhouse with a man I hadn't seen before, a lean, hungry-looking man with no six-shooter in sight but a rifle in his hand. He had careful blue eyes and an easy way about him.

"Talon, this here's Bert Harley. He's a neighbor of ours, helps out once in a while."

"Pleased," he said, bobbing his head a little. Seemed to me there was a kind of a stop in his eye movement when Hinge said my name, but it could have been imagination.

"He'll help with the night herding. And we'll need all the help we can get."

Harley strolled over to the corral and flipped out a loop to catch up a horse. I poured water into the tin basin and rolled up my sleeves.

"Looked that bunch over?" I said to Hinge.

"You mean the size of it? You an' Tony must've worked your tails off."

"Look at 'em."

"I got to see the Old Man. What is it, Milo? What's wrong?"

"No young stuff."

Hinge had taken a couple of steps toward the house. Now he turned back. His eyes were haunted as he looked toward the cattle. "Talon, we just got to find them. Those folks need ever' cent they can get. That girl ... Barby Ann ... she'll have nothing when the old man dies. Not unless we can make it for her. You know what that means? A girl like her? Alone and with nothing?"

"It's no accident," I told him, washing my hands. I splashed water on my face and looked hopefully at the roller towel. I was in luck ... this one hadn't been up more than two days and I found a clean spot. "I've worked a lot of country and never seen so few calves. Somebody's been doing a mighty sly job of rustling."

"Balch!" Hinge's face tightened with anger. "That--!"

"Take another look at it," I said. "We've got no evidence. You brace Balch with something like that and you'll be shootin' the next minute. I'll admit he's an unpleasant sort of character, but we don't know nothing."

I paused. "Joe, do you know of anybody who might have been over our way today? A man on a nice-moving, easy-stepping horse with a long, even stride ... almost new shoes."

He frowned, thinking. "None of our boys were over that way, and the only horses I know of that move like that belong to the major.

"You see somebody?" He looked at me. "It might have been the major's girl. She rides all over the country. You're liable to run into her anywhere. That girl doesn't care where she is as long as she's in the saddle."

"Be careful what you say about Balch," I warned. "I don't think Barby Ann would like it."

"What?" He had started off again. "What's that?"

"She's been talking to Roger. I think she's sweet on him."

"Oh, my God!" Hinge spat. "Of all the damn fool--!" He turned on me again. "That's nonsense! She wouldn't even--"

"She told me herself. She's serious about him, and she thinks he is."

He swore. Slowly, violently, impressively. His voice was low, bitter and exasperated.

"He's bad," Hinge said slowly, "a really bad man. His pa is rough, hard as nails, and he'll ride roughshod over everybody, but that son of his ... he does it out of sheer meanness."

He walked on up to the house and I stood there. Maybe I should have kept my mouth shut, but that girl was walking into serious trouble. If Roger was thinking of the major's daughter ...

But what did I know? And the one thing I did know was that there was no figuring out what went on in a woman's mind. Or a man's either, for that matter. I could handle horses, cattle, and men with guns, but when it came to human emotions I was a poor excuse for a prophet.

A girl like her, growing up in a place like this, would meet few men, and fewer still that would cause her to start dreaming. Roger Balch, whom I'd not met, was obviously young, not too far from her own age, and he was a rancher's son ... Class had more to do with such things than most folks wanted to admit.

Fuentes and me, figuring to start back as soon as we could, were first at the table. First, that is, except for Harley. He was going to be riding night-herd on the stuff we had gathered in, so he was eating early.

"You boys made you a good day of it," Harley said when we sat down. "That's a mighty lonely country over there ... or so I hear."

"You haven't been over there?"

"Off the track for me. My place is south of here. When a man's batching it, and workin' his own place, he doesn't have much time to get around."

"You runnin' cows?"

"A few scrubs. I'll get me some good stock someday. Takes a man a while to get started."

He wasn't joking about that. I had seen a number of men start from nothing and build ranches, and it was anything but easy. If a man had good water, and if there was plenty of open range, he had a chance. I'd seen many of them start, and a few who lasted.

"If I was going to try it," I commented, "I'd try Wyoming or Colorado. The winters are hard but there's good grass and plenty of water. That is, in the mountain country."

"Heard of it," Harley admitted, "but this here's where I'll stay. I like a wide open country where I can see for miles ... But a man does what he can."

"Had a friend who favored Utah," Ben Roper commented. "There's country there no white man has ever seen. Or so he told me."

"Them Blues," Harley began, then cut himself off short, "them Mormons ... I hear they're a folk likes to keep among their own kind."

"Good folks," I said. "I've traveled among 'em, and if you mind your ways you'll have no trouble."

We talked idly, and ate. Barby Ann was a good cook, and Roger Balch was missing a bet if that was what he wanted. I had an idea his father was thinking about an alliance. The major was the one man who made Balch and Saddler hold their fire, but if they could marry him into the family ...

Harley rode off to begin his night watch on the cattle, and we finished our supper, taking our time. We'd decided to start back that night, and not wait for morning.

Joe Hinge hadn't a word to say, all through supper, but when it was over he followed me outside. "Ben tells me you're a gunfighter."

"I've ridden shotgun a few times, but I wouldn't call myself a gunfighter."

"Balch has some tough men working for him."

I shrugged. "I'm a cowhand, Joe, just a cowhand. I'm a drifter who's just passin' through. I'm not hunting any kind of trouble."

"I could use a man who was good with a gun and didn't mind usin' it."

"I'm not your man. I'll fight if I'm pushed, but a man would have to push pretty hard."

We stood there in the dark. "You an' Fuentes gettin' along?"

"He's a first-class hand," I said, "and a better cook than me. Why shouldn't I like him?" I paused, then asked, "Harley stayin' here or his place?"

"Back an' forth. He's got stock to take care of. Lives away back in the breaks of the hills. I don't wonder he likes to work around ... Lonely place."

"You've been there?"

"No, but Danny was once. He rode over there after Harley one time. Had himself a time locatin' him. But that's Danny. He's a fair hand but he couldn't find a church steeple in a cornfield."

It was moonlight when we started back, loaded up with grub for a good long stay. Fuentes was an easy-riding man, and working with him was as I liked it, no strain.

And for the next four days we worked ourselves to a frazzle and had little to show for it. Where there had been cattle a few days ago, now there were none. Fuentes was a brush-popper who knew his business, and riding the brush was both an art and a science. None of your big, wide loops would work there. You saw a steer, and then you didn't, if you got him in the open at all, it was in a clearing your horse could cross in three or four jumps. And if you got a rope on him, you had to send it in like a bullet, and just wide enough to take him. In among the ironwoods, prickly pear and mesquite, you had no chance to build a loop ... it was like casting for fish, only your fish weighed from a thousand to fifteen hundred pounds and some of them would run heavier.

Fuentes could do it. And he had done it, and carried the scars of a lifetime in the brush. It was a business that left scars. You wore heavy leather chaps, a canvas or leather jacket and you had tapaderos on your stirrups so a branch wouldn't run through your stirrup and dump you or stab your horse.

We worked hard, and in four days we rounded up just nine head, and it didn't make sense.

"There's tracks, Tony," I said, "lots of tracks. It doesn't figure."

We were eating. He put his fork down, staring out the door, thinking. "There is one I am thinking of," he said, "a little red heifer. Maybe two years old, very pretty, but very wise for one so young. Every day I saw her, every day she eluded me, every day she was back, but since we have come back, I do not see her."

"Maybe she found herself somebody else to chase her," I said, amused. "They all do sooner or later."

He took up his fork again. "I think maybe you have said something, amigo. I think tomorrow we will not hunt cows."

"No?"

"We will hunt ... maybe a little red heifer. Maybe we find her ... maybe we find something else. I think we will take our rifles."

We went out at daybreak, and I rode the bay with the black mane and tail. It was a cool, pleasant morning, and we ate a quick breakfast. Fuentes led the way toward our hidden spring, and as he neared it he began casting back and forth, suddenly to draw rein and point: "See? Her track. Two days ... maybe three days old."

She had drunk at the pool below the spring, and then had moved off, browsing, as cattle will, along with several others. We followed them out of the hollow and up on the high country beyond, yet it was almost noon before there was a change.

"Amigo? Look!"

I had seen it. Suddenly the wandering ceased and the little red heifer took on direction. She was going straight along now, hurrying occasionally, and she was with several others whose browsing had been interrupted. The reason was immediately obvious:

The track of a horse!

Now more cattle, brought in from the north, more cattle being driven east toward the hills. Another rider.

"If they see us," I suggested, "they will see we follow a trail. Let us spread out, as if searching for strays, but let us keep within sight of one another."

"Bueno, amigo." He cut off from me, occasionally standing in his stirrups as if looking. But we kept on, first one and then another cutting the trail of the small herd ... at least thirty head now ... perhaps more.