War on the Cimarron (12 page)

That afternoon, when he saw the freight crew filing into the place, he picked up his hat and crossed over to the deserted bunkhouse. One by one the weary crew filed in, and when they were all assembled Milabel began to talk. The first twenty minutes he administered a verbal rawhiding that left every man in the crew red faced and cursing. After that he settled down to business and was eventually interrupted by the clanging of the supper gong.

The crew ate in silence, afterward returning to the corrals. Eighteen men saddled up and rode off in pairs toward the east. An old buckboard left the place too, Milabel driving out alone. By dark the Circle R was deserted except for the cook.

The dozen horses stamped impatiently in the night gloom of the live oaks, and all the talk among the men afoot was carried on in whispers. Presently, when two riders approached and dismounted, Milabel's voice, thick and almost indifferent, said, “Well?”

“We cut the fence and drove out every head of horses,” one of the riders said.

“Is there a light in the shack?”

“No. There's a guard on the porch, though.”

Milabel's cigarette arced out and fell to the ground, making a shower of sparks.

“I'll give you fifteen minutes to find your positions. After that you know what to do.”

He and Bart moved off into the timber with six other men. One by one the men dropped away in the darkness. Now Milabel walked softly, for he was on the edge of the clearing toward the house. When he picked up the rank smell of kerosene he went more cautiously. Presently his hand touched the buckboard and he stopped, squatting on his heels and watching the dark bulk of the shack beyond and below the trees. It hadn't been as much of a job as he thought it would be. Six men had carried the light buckboard on their shoulders through the timber, and they had contrived to do it silently enough that the shack hadn't been alarmed.

When he judged the time was up he struck a match, held it under his coat and glanced at his watch. Twenty minutes had passed. Then he looked around at Bart, nodded and threw the match up into the buckboard. There was a soft explosion as the kerosene-soaked rags caught fire. Bart knocked the block out from under the front wheel on his side, Milabel did the same, and then they gave the buckboard a shove.

Some of the full gallon cans of kerosene slopped over, adding to the fire.

The buckboard trundled noisily down the slope, and at the same time the first hammering of shots out by the front porch broke the night.

The buckboard gathered speed, slopping burning kerosene onto the ground. Its tongue had been wired up, its wheel set. It headed straight for the lean-to cookshack.

It just missed the corner of the house and crashed into the lean-to, whose boards gave way. Then the buckboard stopped abruptly, and the filled cans of kerosene slopped forward in a shower of fire.

Bart was already firing at the back window. Milabel drew back into the forest and circled around to the edge of the timber where he could see the front porch.

There were answering shots from the shack. The lean-to was wholly ablaze now, and the flames were eating into the logs of the main shack.

It didn't take long for the first man to make a break. He tried it through the kitchen door, because it was nearest to the timber, and he didn't get ten steps before the fusillade of gunfire felled him and he lay quiet.

The burning shack was lighting up the night now, and by the aid of its light Milabel could pick out the place where each of his men was forted up. He didn't realize he was visible until a Corb slug ripped some bark off the tree against which he was leaning. He dodged behind the tree and calmly watched the fire take its course.

Presently another rider made a break for the corrals and the barn. He almost made it, but he went down too. And now the night was light as day, and Milabel chuckled. When the shooting died down temporarily he raised his great booming voice in the night: “Corb! Oh, Corb!”

Above the crackling of the fire Corb's voice lifted in a wild curse. “Damn your soul, Milabel!”

“Next time you aim to wreck my wagons, think twice about it!”

On the heel of his shout the men in the shack made a break out the burning kitchen for the timber. There were six of them, and among them was Corb.

All the guns of the Circle R crew opened up, but they were caught off guard. One man, the last, went down on the edge of the timber, and the rest vanished into its depths.

Milabel, seeing he would be cut off from his retreat if he didn't hurry, plunged back into the live oaks and ran for his horses.

One by one the Circle R hands drifted back into the timber, got a horse and faded into the night. When Milabel's count was right he too rode off alone, looking back toward the shack when he was clear of the timber.

And lifting over the black line of the timber was a faint glow that crawled to the stars. Satisfied, Milabel didn't look back again.

Chapter X

Otey's wagon had swung far over to the east side of the range, and when Frank and Red spotted it in mid-morning, after wrecking Milabel's freight wagons, they didn't go near it. Instead they offsaddled beside a thicket of cottonwood saplings, threw down their bedrolls in its screening cover and slept. The wagon was too dangerous in daytime.

It was late afternoon when Frank awoke, and quietly, without waking Red, he picked up his blankets and saddle and trudged over the rise of ground and the few hundred yards of prairie to the chuck wagon. Joe Vandermeer, the cook, was the only man there, and he was asleep in the wagon.

At Frank's entrance he rose, and when Frank announced he was hungry enough to eat a folded tarp Joe took pity on him and brought out some cold steak while Frank built a fire for coffee.

“Where's everybody?” Frank asked, yawning.

“Otey and most of the boys are ridin' our east line,” Joe told him. “Beach, he's in Reno after grub, like he always is. He's pretty restless, I reckon.”

By the time the coffee was boiling Red Shibe strolled in, a broad grin on his face at the sight of food.

When they were halfway through the meal Beach Freeman rode into camp, dumped the sack of grub in the chuck wagon and squatted down opposite Frank and Red. He was a thin-faced kid with that wild touchy look about him that is often bred when a youngster is thrown on his own too early in life. But he was a good hand, and Frank had taken him on in the belief that association with older men and hard work would make him forget the saloons and gambling tables and the wild bunch. Joe Vandermeer's words disturbed him. Beach, through the lack of steady work assigned him each day, was drifting back to the saloon crowd, and there was nothing Frank could do about it until this lease business was settled. He spoke to Beach with more friendliness than usual then.

“Gettin' fed up with this boardin'house on wheels, Beach?”

Beach grinned and poked the fire. “Sort of,” he said. There was a strange brightness in his eyes as he brought out a sack of tobacco and rolled a smoke.

“I heard some talk at the sutler's store at the post,” Beach announced presently.

“Like what?”

“Like Corb and Milabel are tanglin',” Beach said. “Last night Corb wrecked a couple of Milabel's freight wagons, and right under his nose.”

Frank looked at Red and grinned, and Beach saw it.

“What's funny?” Beach said.

“Tell me how you heard it and I'll tell you,” Frank said.

Beach was still curious. “A Circle R hand come into the post this afternoon with a buckboard and bought a load of grub. He was in a hell of a hurry and headed northwest with it, but not before he got a fresh team from the wagon yard.”

Frank's attention sharpened. “Fresh team? Which way'd he go?”

“Northwest.”

“You see him hire the team?”

“Sure. After he told the clerk about the wagons bein' wrecked I drifted out to the stable behind him. I seen him hire the team,” Beach said.

“Hear him say any more?”

“Nothin' I understood,” Beach said. “He called to the hostler that he'd have one of Walkin' Elk's boys bring the team in.”

Frank looked at Red, and Red said, “Walkin' Elk's summer camp is on the north fork.”

“Sounds like he might be hurryin' some grub up to a trail crew.”

Red nodded, and he and Frank exchanged brief glances.

Beach blurted out, “What's the secret, anyhow?”

“Nothin',” Frank said. “Only we wrecked the Circle R freight wagons, Beach.” He told him about it, and Beach's eyes glowed as he listened. He laughed when Frank was finished, and there was a kind of longing in his face. Nothing that had passed between Frank and Red had escaped him, and when the talk shifted to other things he remained silent, watching them.

As dusk settled Frank rose. “We'll have to be driftin', Joe,” Frank announced. “Fix up a couple of days' grub for us.”

Red rose too and headed out for their horses which were grazing near by.

Beach poked the fire nervously and rolled a cigarette and watched Joe and Frank pick out the grub. Finally Beach rose and came up to Frank.

“Can I talk to you, Frank?”

“Shoot,” Frank said.

“Not here,” Beach said, looking at Joe Vandermeer. Frank, puzzled, walked over beyond the fire, then turned to face Beach. The kid's face was tense, excited.

“I seen you look at Red when you said that about the trail herd,” Beach said quickly. “You aim to raid it, Frank?”

“I dunno,” Frank said. “We haven't even talked it over.”

“Let me go,” Beach said.

Frank had his mouth open to refuse when Beach burst out, “Hell, Frank, I'm growed up. You promised me a ridin' job when you took me on. I done all right on the trail, didn't I?”

“Sure.”

“I want work!” Beach said vehemently. “Hell, it ain't no fun listenin' to Otey grouse around every night. You and Red are out raisin' hell, doin' somethin'! All I'm doin' is runnin' errands for Otey over at the post and then settin' around listenin' to him moanin' every night about the bad trouble we're gettin' into.”

“This is risky, Beach, and—”

“I want it risky!” Beach cried. “I ain't a old man!”

There was a desperation in Beach's face that was a compound of youth, boredom and envy, and Frank felt a sudden sympathy for him. He had broken too many colts not to know that there were times when a man had to let up on the discipline if he didn't want to spoil the spirit of the animal.

He said gently, “No gunplay goes, Beach. You got to be fast on your feet and no stoppin' to fight.”

“Try me,” Beach said, excitement in his voice.

Presently Frank said, “All right. Get a horse and some grub.”

Beach let out a whoop of joy and ran for the wagon. Red drifted in with the horses, and Frank walked over to him and told him Beach was going along.

“You aim to raid that trail herd with him along?” Red asked.

“What's the matter with that?” Frank demanded.

Red looked away. “Nothin',” he said mildly.

Frank took his reins. There was something the matter with it for Red, he thought; and then the old stubbornness built up inside him, and he didn't care. He was boss of this crew. It was tough enough being outlawed into this strike-and-hide way of fighting without having to argue every step of the way. He was dimly aware that his patience was a pretty thin thing nowadays as he waited for Beach to bring in his horse. Red was whistling faintly, and the incident had apparently already slipped his mind.

It was a long ride that night and a fast one, for Frank didn't want to lay over a day unless he had to. Red, as usual, set the pace, for he knew this big land. It was close to dawn when Red pulled up and said, “Listen.”

They quieted, and they could hear the far yapping of dogs.

“That's Walkin' Elk's camp,” Red announced. “My guess is that the Circle R will use that old army freight crossing a mile below the camp. They'll be shippin' three-year-olds this time of year, and the crossin' will have to be just as gentle as they can make it, on account of the tallow on them steers.”

“Head for it,” Frank said. “We'll see.”

They rode on for another hour, and the sky to the east was beginning to gray faintly with a false dawn. Frank kept an uneasy eye on the east, and as they pulled out of a dip in the ground he had almost decided that by the time they found the herd it would be too light to work.

Suddenly, ahead of him and over the ridge, he caught the bright flare of a campfire, and he pulled his horse around and grabbed the reins of Beach's pony. Red saw it too, and they moved softly away to the east. There, across the flat prairie, they could plainly see the fire built behind the chuck wagon. Two men were moving around it, the horse wrangler and the cook. Off ahead of them, just barely visible against the prairie, was the dark mass of the herd bedded down for the night. It would only be a matter of seconds before the first steer came to his feet and drifted toward the river, and the herd would be wakened.

Frank spoke swiftly to Beach. “You and Red strike north and stampede them toward the river. Don't talk to anyone, don't shoot, and the first sign of daylight strike straight for the last creek we crossed and wait.”

They split up. Frank waited alone. When the first shot came and Red raised the long yell he touched the spurs to his horse and headed for the herd at one side of the wagon, letting his gun off into the air.

He was where he could see the camp and hear the herd. There was a clashing of horns ahead of him as the cattle, panicked out of sleep, reared to their feet and started to push. The trail hands came out of their blankets at once, running for their horses, and off across the herd, from two places, bloomed the orange wink of Red's and Beach's guns.

Then the thunder started as the cattle began to move, bawling in their terror to get away from the nameless dread that had passed among them like a prairie fire sweeping dry grass. Frank swung in behind the herd, letting off his gun and yelling. The space around the wagon was empty now; the cook had climbed up on the drop shelf of the wagon and was now perched on top of the box, out of harm's way. A few frantic cattle ran on the other side of the wagon, and off to the right there was a fusillade of shots.