Where the Long Grass Blows (1976) (13 page)

"You came into this country playing it mighty big and strong. You were going to be the boss. You saw Pogue and Reynolds and you took them for easy marks. You seem to have had something on the Venables, but like so many crooks you overlooked the obvious.

"Let me tell you something, although you'll not believe it. You'd lost this fight before you ever took a hand in the game. If you were really as smart as you believe you are, you'd turn that horse of yours around and ride right out of here and never even look back."

Levitt smiled, but for the first time the smile was forced. Suddenly he was uneasy, yet it was only for the moment. "I may not be as clever as I think I am, Canavan, but no four-bit cowhand is going to outsmart me."

Canavan shrugged. "Mabry, let's ride down toward the stock pens. I want to see what Reynolds and Pogue think of those altered brands."

They rode away and Star Levitt looked after them, holding his smile. Yet there was a thin grain of worry in him now.

Had he overlooked something? Had he made a mistake?

Chapter
XII

Canavan rode away, Mabry beside.

Mabry stole a glance at Canavan. "You sure turned the knife in him. What you want him to do? Start something?"

"He's a planner and a plotter, Mabry. He works out a careful plan, but he's got too much temper for it He'll get impatient, and maybe he'll do things he hadn't planned on. And if he does, he'll make mistakes."

He drew up and turned in the saddle to look back. Levitt was gone. "I wish I knew what he has on the Venables." He scowled. "You don't suppose she really likes him, do you?"

Mabry shrugged. "Sometimes I can guess what a steer will do, and I've even outguessed a wild bronc or two, but keep me away from women. I never could read the sign right, and every time I think I've got one figured, she crosses me up."

Despite the growing sense of trouble, the roundup was proceeding at a good pace. Yet it was like no roundup either Canavan or Mabry had experienced.

The men were tense, less inclined to joke as the days went on, and conversation was at a minimum. Several times Canavan saw Dixie, but she avoided him.

Tom Venable was there, sharing the work like any other cowhand, and proving himself to be not only ready and willing, but fairly knowing about cattle. It was obvious the hands liked him. He asked no favors but stepped up and did his share of the work and even a little more. From the first day, however, he had pitched right in and had worked hard, driving himself to keep up the pace set by the older, more knowledgeable hands.

He was a man to like, a man who could make a place for himself anywhere, so what was it with Levitt and him? Or her?

The days continued hot and dusty. Tempers grew short, but despite that fact there were no serious arguments or fights such as can occur on any roundup crewand on some outfits are almost the order of the day. It seemed as if nobody wished to give offense, as if everybody knew something was about to happen and must be guarded against.

The next day, the roundup moved to the vicinity of Soledad, and there Canavan got his break. He had been trying to find a chance to talk to Dixie, and suddenly he saw it. She had been talking to Levitt, and she turned away from him and rode into the cottonwoods that bordered the W ranch.

Canavan started after her and, looking around, saw himself watched by Dahl. His hard, lupine face set in grim, watchful lines was staring after him. Mabry was very much in the center of things, and working hard. Voyle had pulled out to saddle a fresh horse.

Dixie had gone but a few yards into the woods when he overtook her. For the first time, he noted how thin and pale of face she had become, and was shocked by the change.

"Dixie? Wait ... I must talk to you."

She drew up and waited, although she kept her face averted and seemed in no mood for conversation.

She made no comment as he came alongside, keeping her eyes straight ahead. "Leaving so soon?"

She nodded. "Star said the men were becoming quite rough in their language and would feel freer if I went in."

"I've been wanting to talk to you. You've been avoiding me."

She turned and looked straight at him then.

"Yes, Bill, I have been. We must not see each other again. I am going to marry Star and seeing you simply won't do."

"You don't love him." The statement was flat and simple, but she avoided his gaze and offered no comment.

Then suddenly she said, "I've got to go, Bill.

Star insisted I leave right away."

Canavan's eyes hardened. "Do you take orders from him? What is this, anyway? Are you a slave?"

Her face flushed and she was about to make an angry reply when the sense of her earlier remark hit him. He caught her wrist. "Dixie, did you say Star insisted? That you leave now?"

"Yes." She was astonished at his sudden vehemence.

"He said-was Her remark trailed off to nothing, for Bill Canavan had turned sharply in his saddle to look back toward the roundup grounds. Kerb Dahl had finished his cigarette. Voyle was fumbling with his saddle girth, and for the first time Canavan realized Voyle was carrying a rifle on his saddle within inches of his hands.

Canavan's eyes searched for the white horse and found it beyond the herd.

He turned back to Dixie. "He's right. You ride for home and don't stop this side of there. No matter what happens, keep going."

He wheeled his horse and cantered back toward the herd, taking a course that would keep him clear of Dahl and Voyle, hoping he would be in time. A small herd of cattle driven by Streeter and Hanson was drifting down toward the pens.

He drew up on the edge of the branding area just as Mabry straightened up to get the kinks out of his back. He had to call out three times before Mabry heard him and walked over. "Mabry, let's get out of here! It's coming! Now!"

Mabry wasted no time in talking. His horse was tied to the pens close at hand, and he was beside him in a half-dozen strides. He jerked the tie loose and swung into the saddle.

"Let's get out of here," Canavan said. "I don't know how or just where, but-was At that moment, Emmett Chubb, sitting his horse, spoke irritably to Riggs, a young Box n rider. "You just naturally dumb or do ya have to try?"

Riggs looked around sharply. "What's that?" Riggs was puzzled. He was a tough youngster, hardworking and no nonsense about him, and Chubb's remark came as a complete surprise. Riggs was working hard while Chubb had merely lounged in his saddle, doing nothing.

"What did you say?"

"Seems to me," Chubb drawled, "that you Box n boys done your best work before the roundup, slappin" brands on everything in sight!"

Hot and tired, Riggs was in no mood to be cautious or even to think. He had been insulted, and so had his outfit, something no self-respecting hand would allow.

"I said you were a bunch of cow thieves!" Chubb repeated.

"You're a liar!" Riggs shouted and, fast as Chubb was, he was only a hair faster than the angry young cowpuncher. Riggs's gun was coming up when Chubb's shot smashed him over the belt buckle.

Riggs was knocked back two steps by the force of the bullet and his gun kept lifting, his blue eyes blazing with fury even as he died.

It was the signal for which they had waited, and in an instant the branding pens were thundering with gunfire. Hot stabs of flame penetrated the dust. Men screamed, cried out and went down, groveling in the dust, struggling in their last bitter gasp to get off a shot, at least one shot.

Mabry came around the corner of the pens on a dead run. Canavan gestured toward the timber.

"It's their fight." he yelled. "Let them have it!"

"Look!" Mabry was pointing.

Streeter and Hanson, on the ground behind their horses, were shooting across the saddles, opening up on Pogue and Reynolds. Voyle was dodging through scattering cattle, six-gun in hand, trying for a shot at someone. From the dust came a scream of agony, then a bullet cut the scream off short "Pogue's own men turned on him!" Mabry yelled angrily. "Did you see that?"

"We'd better light a shuck. I think they intended to nail us, too."

They had been off at a dead run, and now their horses broke into the trees and they pulled up to look back. The crash and thunder of the guns had ceased.

A riderless horse ran from the dust, stirrups flopping against its sides. Somewhere in the dust there was a single shot ... then another.

Only when they had put miles behind them did they slow up to talk. Mabry glanced at Canavan. "I feel like a coyote, runnin' off from a fight like that, but it surely wasn't our fight"

"It wasn't supposed to be a fight. It was a massacre, and Levitt engineered the whole affair." Canavan explained how Dixie had been started home to get her out of harm's way before the shooting started.

"Chubb had his orders, and he deliberately started that fight when he got the go-ahead signal."

"Riggs was a good hand. One of the best men on a horse I ever did see."

"There was nothing we could have done but stay there and die. He had all his men in picked firing positions and they had no idea of letting anyone get away."

"Do you suppose anyone did?"

"Doubt it. Not unless he was shot with luck. I think those last shots we heard were Levitt's men going around killing those who were still alive."

Canavan stopped his horse and turned to look back, to study his back trail with care. By now Levitt would know they had escaped the massacre, and he would have men hunting them, for none must be left to tell the story.

"Mabry, from now on you and me will have to ride carefully every step of the way. We saw what happened, and if ever the law comes in here they'll be asking questions we can answer. So Levitt will want us dead.

"But somehow we've got to survive. We've got to get the Venables out from under him, and we've got to see that Levitt gets what he deserves."

"Reynolds and Pogue only got what they had comin'," Mabry said. "I feel no sorrow for them. What I'm wonderin' is what Levitt will do now?

He's got the Venables under his thumb and the range sewed up."

Canavan considered that and thought he might have the answer. "We'll have to wait and see. He'll blame the fight on the feud between the two big outfits and claim he was only an innocent bystander."

"What about the riders? Some of them will tell the truth."

"If they know it. We knew what was coming in time to pull out, but down there among the dust and the confusion they'd have no chance to even see who started it. They were busy working, and all of a sudden the shooting began, that's all they'll know. And if anybody is damn fool enough to start asking questions, he won't last long."

"If he kills like that," Mabry wondered, "what chance have we got?"

"A good chance if we can keep out of sight.

We're honest men, even if the only law here is gun law.

We'll have to wait and see what the next move is, but I'm guessing Levitt will clean up all the loose ends. And then he might even call in the law from outside to give himself a clean bill."

Roily Burt was waiting for them when they reached the mesa. He glanced from one to the other.

"What happened? You boys look like you been runnin."

As briefly as possible, Canavan explained.

"The fight might have come, anyway, even if Levitt hadn't planned it, but without planning he couldn't be sure the right men would be killed."

"How many were down?"

"No tellin'," Mabry said. "Enough to leave Levitt in the saddle, playing the big, honest man who only wants to keep the peace. There was too much confusion for good shooting, except by those on the fringe where his men were."

Burt began dishing up the food. "Bill, what happened to Charlie Reynolds?"

"He's sure to be dead. He and Pogue. Even Berdue was shooting at them, at his own uncle. No man deserves that."

When they were sitting around the small fire eating, Burt said, "Got some news of my own. Whilst you two were gone, I did some stumping around here, trying to loosen up the muscles in my game leg.

You'll never guess what I found."

"What?" Struck by something in Burt's tone, Canavan paused with a forkful of beans almost to his mouth. "What did you find?"

"That rumblin' in the rock? I found what causes it, and man, when you see it your hairll stand right on end. You never seen anything like it."

Chapter
XIII

Bill Canavan opened his eyes to look up through the rustling aspen leaves at a vast expanse of impossibly blue sky spangled with white puff-balls of cloud. He rolled out of his blankets and started to dress, trying to keep his feet out of the grass, still wet with morning dew.

Mabry stuck his head bristling with a wild mat of red hair from under his blanket and stared unhappily at Canavan.

"Roily," he complained, "what can a man do when his boss insists on gettin' up so early? It ain't neither fittin' nor right for a man to get up at this heathen hour, not when there's no stock to feed."