War on the Cimarron (4 page)

Suddenly the man across the compound broke away from the shadows. He was mounted and he was riding straight across to join his partner.

Frank swung his gun up, but before he could shoot, two shots in rapid succession came from the man by the gate. The horse swerved and grunted and went down, and its rider catapulted over its head. He scrambled out of the dust then and crawled behind the down horse and yelled miserably, “Get out the back way, you damn fool!”

The other rider put his horse out from the shed at a dead run, heading for the stable archway, and the man afoot wheeled and ran in the same direction. In that uncertain light Frank emptied his gun and saw them both vanish in the archway.

Almost immediately he heard the noise of men on the street running toward the stable. Then out of the darkness the lone figure of a man appeared. He stopped and said, “Christian?”

It was the man by the gate.

Frank said, “All right.”

“Keep your mouth shut and let me talk,” the man said.

And Frank walked up to join him and face the crowd which was coming through the gate.

As soon as the lantern was lighted a blue-uniformed army captain took command. He came striding toward Frank and the stranger, who was standing just beyond the downed horse.

“What's going on here?” the captain asked in a voice of iron authority.

Frank glanced obliquely at his companion. He was an unshaven and redheaded young puncher in ragged clothes, and his face, pleasantly homely, was overlaid with a tough and amused defiance that did not change at the sight of authority. He was a solid man, inches shorter than Frank, and his shirt was so ragged that patches of sunburned skin showed through the rents in his sleeve.

The captain was a small man with a cavalryman's stiff gait. When he saw Frank's companion he stopped and said sourly, “Oh. You again.”

“That's right,” the redhead said.

“What was all the shooting about?”

The redhead let the curious crowd of garrison loafers form a loose circle about them, and then he gestured to the downed horse. “I come in here for my horse. Soon's I stepped in the gate all hell broke loose. A couple of gunnies cut loose at me. This man here”—he nodded his head toward Frank—“was comin' out of the stable. He sided in with me and we drove 'em off.”

The captain's hot eyes shifted to Frank. “Who are you?”

Frank told him his name and, remembering the advice of the redhead, said no more. The captain grunted and went over to the downed horse. It was dead and was wearing a worn saddle whose leather was almost rotted away. The captain bent over and studied the brand. “Circle R,” he announced.

Frank glanced obliquely at the redhead, and the redhead shook his head faintly.

The captain wheeled then and came back to the redhead. “I gave you a warnin' last week, didn't I?”

The redhead nodded. “I been rememberin' it. Only I don't call it gettin' in trouble when you defend yourself against a couple of bushwhackers.”

The captain glared at him. “Shibe, the trouble with you is you bring trouble with you. Maybe you better try stayin' away from Reno for a stretch and let us catch our breath.”

“That an order?” the redhead drawled.

“Straight from headquarters,” the captain said grimly. “We've had enough of you here. Next time you're seen in Reno we'll throw you in the guardhouse and freight you up to trial in Kansas.”

He turned on his heel and pushed his way through the crowd of curious men. The loafers, with a last curious glance at Frank and Shibe, drifted away, leaving the lantern on the ground.

Frank turned to Shibe. “I'm much obliged,” he said slowly. “Only you know damn well them shots wasn't meant for you.”

Shibe grinned and nodded. “I knew they was meant for you. That's why I followed you back.”

“You knew someone was plannin' it?”

Shibe shrugged. “Word's already out about your tangle with the Circle R outfit and with Corb. Morg Wheelon did the same thing, and he's dead.”

Frank's attention narrowed. “You knew Morg, you say?”

“I was the last man to see him alive.” Shibe said. He grinned. “Somebody can't forget that, and they're afraid of what I might know. That's what Captain Arthur meant by me makin' trouble. They've tried three times in the last month to nail me.”

“Why'd you tell me to let you talk?”

Shibe grinned again. “The army's the only law we got around here, and they're already down on me, so it don't matter. But I figured it won't be long before you'll be standin' up on your hind legs and talkin' back to some of these ranahans, and the longer you keep away from the army the longer you can stand.”

Frank looked sharply at the redhead. It was almost as if his mind had been read. He said, nodding toward the horse, “That's a Circle R brand.”

“Don't mean a thing. It was probably stole.”

“Know who those men were?”

Shibe shook his head. Frank regarded him thoughtfully, then said, “You ridin' the grub line, Shibe?”

“I would if there was a grub line to ride.”

“It's a funny thing,” Frank murmured, his eyes baleful. “Ever since I got here I been askin' questions, and I been gettin' no answers. I been standing up, and somebody keeps tryin' to knock me down. All right. I know what I got to know now. Me, I'm gettin' down on all four and askin' no more questions, and I aim to bite somebody. How does it sound to you?”

“Like Morg Wheelon, partner,” Shibe drawled.

Frank put out his hand. “We might's well howl together then, because you're workin' for me, Red.”

Red Shibe looked at the hand and then glanced up. “I've got a bad name, you know.”

“You got nothin' on me,” Frank said. “When I get through doin' what I'm goin' to do I'll have one too.”

And then Red Shibe gripped his hand, and his smile was wholly friendly.

Chapter III

Riding back to the wagon through the night, Frank listened to what Red Shibe had to say. It was only a variation of what Barnes and Edith Fairing had told him, only with more background and a kind of shrewd understanding. Shibe had done Morg a good turn, and Morg had given him work during the winter putting up the shack. Morg had promised him a riding job, but Red, understanding that a crew was coming up with Frank from Texas, was slow to accept it unless they needed him. That was the agreement then, that he and Morg would talk with Frank. And then Morg was murdered and Circle R moved in, and Red kept his counsel, waiting for Frank.

Every word Red said added to Frank's determination, and he was silent most of the ride. Sometime after midnight they put their horses down the slope toward the wagon. It was dark, and the fire was long since out.

Frank rode up to the camp, but before he was even close someone called out into the night, “Stay where you are!”

“It's me, Frank.”

“Oh.” It was Beach Freeman's voice. “All right, Frank.”

Beach struck a match then, and the fire, already laid, was lighted, and as it ate its way into the brush and lighted up the camp Frank and Shibe rode into view. The crew was wakening, and Otey Fleer came up out of his blankets.

Frank pulled up and looked around him. The chuck wagon was laying on its side in the rim of the fire's light. Cans of food, flour, grub of all sorts were scattered around in broken boxes. The rank clinging smell of burned wool troubled Frank until he noticed that most of his crew was sleeping on pulled grass and shared one blanket between two of them.

His eyes finally settled on Otey. “What happened?”

“Just a visit from your neighbors,” Otey said calmly. He was studying Red Shibe with a hard suspicion. “Who's this?”

“Tell it, man!” Frank said impatiently. “Did the Circle R wreck the camp?”

Otey's suspicious gaze shuttled from Red back to Frank, and he nodded. “That's about it. Ten-fifteen of them rode over this evenin' after dark. They was lookin' for you to make good on your brag, they said. They held guns on us and wrecked the wagon, smashed what they could, scattered the grab, burned our blankets and told us to get the hell off their range before they got mad at us.”

Frank's whole crew was watching him. Beach Freeman had been guarding camp, and because he was the youngest the concern in his face was the deepest. The bald cook, Joe Vandermeer, sucked at a piece of grass and watched Frank with cynical and disillusioned eyes. Mitch, Henry and Samse, middle aged and younger than Otey, studied Frank with veiled indifference. Their boss had been shamed, and now a strong crew had warned them off.

Frank, looking at them, came to a sudden decision. He had been crowded as far as he was going to be, and he might just as well start making good his brag to Milabel right now. He dismounted and said curtly, “Samse, go round up the horses.” To Otey he said, “Did they get the case of shells?”

“No.”

Frank looked at the crew. “I'm goin' to move in that shack like I said I would, and there's goin' to be trouble. Any of you don't like it, now's the time to ride out.”

There was a short silence, and then Beach Freeman said, “But we're only six, Frank. Hell, they claim twenty-odd all told, I hear.”

“Not six. We've got seven,” Frank said. He remembered then that he hadn't introduced Red, and he did so. Nobody shook hands with him or paid any attention to him.

In fact, nobody said anything at all. “Well, speak up,” Frank said shortly. “Beach, you want to quit?”

“Not if the others don't,” Beach said surlily. “I can take what the rest of you can.”

“Then break out that case of shells,” Frank said. “We're movin.'”

An hour or so before daylight they pulled out of the camp, fording the stream and heading up the north slope, and the limping chuck wagon followed them with the salvaged grub and the few blankets. And long before false dawn touched the east Red Shibe had scattered them in the live-oak thicket that stretched down to almost touch Morg Wheelon's shack. The chuck wagon was left back in the timber, and the cook was given a rifle. And then silence settled on the coming dawn and they waited.

As it became lighter Frank surveyed the house from his position behind a tree midway between the house and the corrals. The chimney in the cookshack lean-to was already streaming smoke, and the lamp was lighted in the house. Presently, as daylight came, the lamp was doused and there was the sound of voices. Shortly afterward the first rider, after-breakfast cigarette in his mouth, drifted out to the corral. He saddled a horse and rode out into the horse pasture and drove in the remuda, and afterward the riders came out in twos and threes, heading for the corral and the day's work.

When the ninth man left the house and hurried to catch up with the others Frank looked over at Red, who was bellied down behind a thick-trunked live oak. Red nodded.

Frank lifted his rifle, sighted a foot behind the walking puncher's heels and let go. The shot bellowed out to break the morning stillness, raising a slapping echo in the valley.

The puncher wheeled, mouth gaping, looking off into the timber. Beach Freeman, from further toward the corrals, shot then. No geyser of dust marked the spot where the slug hit, but it must have been close, for the puncher turned and streaked for the corrals. Red's gun joined in and then Samse's, hastening his flight. Somebody yelled in the corrals, and four heads poked up over the top of the corral bars and then ducked down again as a fusillade of shots winged over them.

Their answering shots were not long in coming, and, as Frank expected, they were six guns and not rifles. Satisfied, he crawled back into the timber, circled, and when the shack was between himself and the corral he came forward to the edge of the timber close to the lean-to. The cook was nowhere in sight, and the shots beyond pounded steadily and often, keeping the crew driven to the shelter of the barns and the corrals. Frank studied the shack a moment, listening for any shot from it, and he heard none.

He raced across the fifty feet of open space, gun in hand, and flattened himself against the lean-to and listened. Someone was stirring inside, and that would be the cook.

Then he hefted his gun and lunged inside. The kitchen was empty, the breakfast pans cluttering the table. Softly, then, he tiptoed to the door into the bunkhouse and looked inside. Against the back wall was the cook, and he was holding open the back window which hinged at the top, keeping his body out of sight.

Ten feet from the window, so that his body would be invisible to Frank's crew outside, stood Milabel, a rifle to his shoulder. Beyond, out in the timber, Frank could see Red Shibe crawling back from his tree into the deep timber.

Frank whipped up his gun and shot from the hip, and the cook let the window down with a crash just as Milabel's gun exploded.

Milabel and the cook wheeled—to look into the steady barrel of Frank's Colt.

“Drop it,” Frank said softly to Milabel.

The surprise on the big foreman's face tightened into a savage anger, and for a moment Frank wondered if he would take the chance of levering in a shell and shooting before he was downed. Then the rifle clattered to the floor, and Milabel slowly raised his big hands over his head.

“You can't get away with it, Christian!” he said. “We'll wipe this place off the map tomorrow.”

“
You
won't,” Frank said. “You won't be wipin' anything except your nose.” His glance shifted to the cook. “You, go out that door and high-tail it for the corrals.”

The cook licked his lips, an expression of stark fear creeping into his slack face. “I'll git shot,” he said.

“Here or out there, take your choice,” Frank said.

The cook slowly circled the room, his hands above his head, looked desperately at Milabel for a sign that was not given, and then he paused in the doorway. Beyond the corner of the house, he knew, he would be fair game for what seemed to be fifty rifles back in the timber.