House of Winslow 14 The Valiant Gunman Read online

  Even in the tension of that moment, both Caudill and Diane noted that Head mentioned the lost stock before the wounded man. “Who got hurt?” Ash demanded. “Where was this?”

  At a nod from Head, Deuce Longly explained. “Me and Legs was at the line shack over near Simmons Bluff. Got those two-year-olds feedin’ there. Well, we was in the shack last night, and Legs heard somethin’ outside. I thought it was some kind of a critter, but then we heard the cattle start bawlin’—like they was bein’ driven.” Longly was so fair-skinned and had such pale blue eyes that he came close to being an albino. He was a cool hand and a hard one, so Ash listened to him carefully.

  “Well, we got our guns and popped outside—and it was light enough to see some riders. They were movin’ the cattle out.”

  “Rustlers?” Caudill demanded instantly, his eyes growing angry.

  “Well, they weren’t takin’ those cows out for no midnight stroll, Ash,” Deuce said sarcastically.

  “What’d you do?”

  “Why, we opened up on ’em, of course! But they was waitin’ for us. Soon as we fired, they cut down on us from two or three spots. They knocked Legs down with the first volley. I dropped and they kept on firin’. It was all I could do to get him back in the line shack.”

  “Why’d you take so long to get back to the ranch, Deuce?” Caudill snapped.

  Deuce was one of the few hands who had no fear of Ash. His pale eyes never wavered as he shot back, “Because some of ’em kept us pinned down all night while the rest of ’em took the cattle. I ain’t gettin’ paid to commit suicide, Mister Caudill!”

  Caudill stared at him, then waved his hand. “Sure, Deuce. How’s Legs?”

  “Shot in the leg. I hauled him back in the wagon.”

  Caudill looked at Silas Head. “I’ll go after them, Mr. Head.”

  “Bring the rustlers back dead,” the rancher snapped. “We’ve been nibbled at for a long time by those little fellows. This is different.”

  “Won’t be easy to find ’em, Mr. Head,” Deuce shrugged. “You know how them hills are around that country. Lots of draws and blind canyons. I took a little look-see before I brought Legs in. Seems like they took some of the stock into hiding, then stampeded the rest all over creation. I don’t reckon even an Indian could pick up that trail.”

  A wild look came into the eyes of Silas Head. “I want them hanged, you hear me?”

  “Dad, we’ve got to catch them first,” Diane protested.

  “We know who’s behind it.” Silas shook his ponderous head. “This isn’t just a few cows. This is organized rustling, and I won’t have it.”

  “I’ll take the Indian and see if he can pick up their trail,” Caudill said quickly.

  “Be careful you don’t come up on ’em too sudden,” Deuce warned. “Those hairpins can shoot.”

  Thirty minutes later, Ash mounted his horse with the Indian hand and six other men, but Head called to him, and Ash dismounted and moved to stand before the owner. “Yes, Mr. Head?”

  “Ash, this thing has got to be taken care of.”

  “Sure.”

  Head studied his foreman carefully. He was calmer now and lowered his voice to say, “I doubt you can pick up this bunch. They got too long a start on you. They’ll be halfway to Cheyenne by the time you get lined out.”

  “I’d guess that’s right,” Caudill said. He gave the big man in front of him a quizzical look, then asked, “What do you want done, Mr. Head?”

  Silas Head stood there thinking of many things, but mostly of the hard days when the very range he stood on had been riddled by rifle fire. He had seen his good friends shot to death, and for just one moment he hesitated. But he had put his life into Arrow, and now he knew he would have to fight for it one more time.

  “We’ll have to grind them down,” he said grimly. “I could live with the few we’ve got now, the small timers, but there’s no end to them. Once you let them take root, they breed like insects! And now they’ve got somebody to follow—which leaves us no choice.”

  “You want me to take them out, Mr. Head?”

  “Yes, and I hate to see it. Some of those poor farmers are going to get hurt, just like some of us will go down. But a man’s got to fight for what’s his.” That was the code of Silas Head—“A man’s got to fight for what’s his.” Now as he spoke it, a bitterness clouded his eyes, and he looked sternly at Caudill. “Do what you’ve got to do, Ash.”

  Caudill, nodded. “All right, Mr. Head. I’ll take care of it.”

  Head stood watching the crew ride out, and his heavy shoulders drooped. He well understood what he had set in motion by his order to Caudill, but there was no other way. Slowly he turned and disappeared into the house, not wanting to watch the spiral of dust made by Caudill and the men as they rode into the distance.

  ****

  Zane Jenson, after being laid off by Oscar Wells and asking every rancher in the country for work, was down to his last quarter when he met a puncher who suggested, “Well, you might try the Slash R.” He was a thin cowboy with a lantern jaw and a hard eye. “If I was hungry as you, thet’s where I’d go, at least till I got a stake. But it’s a tough outfit, kid, and you could get into trouble.”

  “What kind of trouble?” Zane asked.

  But the puncher only said, “I ain’t recommendin’ it—but it beats starvin’, I reckon.”

  Zane was lightheaded with hunger, and getting instructions from the rider, he made his way to the hills, losing his way more than once. He was riding with his head down and nearly fell off his horse when a voice broke out suddenly, “Hold it right there—!”

  Two men bracketed him, then one of them demanded, “Where d’ya think you’re going?”

  “Lookin’ for the Slash R,” Zane muttered. “Feller told me I might get a job there.”

  The two men exchanged glances, then the older of the two grinned. He was a short, muscular puncher with a shock of blond hair and a drooping mustache. “Guess he ain’t dangerous, Ray,” he said.

  “Ain’t worth takin’ back, Keno,” his companion answered. He was a tall, thin man with bad teeth and a sour look. “Get back where you come from,” he grunted.

  “Wait a minute,” the one called Keno said. He examined the boy with a sharp eye, then asked, “Don’t reckon you can cook, can you, boy?”

  Zane thought of the times he’d helped Hope, and he’d learned a lot from Ozzie Og on the drive from Texas. “Try me,” he nodded. “If I don’t suit, you can always run me off.”

  Keno laughed, his teeth very white against his tanned skin. “I like a man who’ll speak up. What’s your name?”

  “Zane Jenson.”

  “Come along.” He turned his horse, ignoring the protests of the one called Ray. “We lost our cook three days ago, and if I have to eat any more of my own cooking I’ll go loco.”

  The two led Zane through a maze of hills, finally leading him up to a ranch house and several large corrals to stand before two men sitting on the front porch. “Found us a cook,” Keno announced.

  Charlie Littleton examined Zane, questioned him, then shrugged. “You can take a shot at it, kid. If you don’t suit, you’ll have to leave. Show him the kitchen, Keno.”

  The scrawny puncher led him to the kitchen, then left saying, “Hope you do good, Zane.” As soon as he left, Zane found some canned meat and some cold, hard biscuits and promptly stuffed himself. It restored his strength, and he spent the afternoon doing his best to prepare a meal. He found the larder well-stocked, including a quarter of beef from which he carved a big roast. He got a fire going in the big stove, threw the makings of corn bread dressing together, then made pie dough.

  He had no idea of how many to cook for, and he was not sure of the timing, but when five o’clock came, Littleton entered the kitchen. “Crew’s on the way, kid. Supper ready?”

  “Yes, sir. I’ll put it on the table.”

  He put out the food, and when the crew came in and sat down, they pitched in with a vengea
nce. He’d made a big pot of beans with hot peppers to go with the roast and dressing, and Littleton exclaimed after sampling the food, “You’re hired, kid!”

  When he brought out the three pies, two apple and one peach, even the surly puncher named Ray had loosened up. “Well, now, this ain’t bad at all.”

  “You better send us out to do the hirin’, Boss,” Keno mumbled, his mouth full of pie. “If Ray and me can find a good cook lost in the bushes, we ought to be able to find any sort of feller!”

  Afterward, Charlie Littleton let the rest of the crew leave the dining room, then asked Zane, “How does forty a month sound to you?”

  “Real good, Mr. Littleton,” Zane agreed quickly. “But I gotta tell you—I did my best meal tonight. I’ll have to practice on other stuff.”

  “Sure,” Littleton nodded. He looked at the boy with an odd expression. “Keno said you was looking for my place when they found you. Who sent you here?”

  “I run into this puncher in town. Told him I was lookin’ for a job and he said you might be hirin’.”

  “He say anything else?”

  It was an innocent question, and Zane didn’t try to lie to the man. “Well, he said it was a tough outfit.”

  Littleton stared hard at Zane. “You do the cooking, Jenson. Keep the hands fed and your nose out of everything else. Safer that way.”

  Zane swallowed hard. “Sure, Mr. Littleton.”

  It was a strange time for Zane. He threw himself into the job of learning to cook, but he soon sensed that the Slash R was more than just a tough outfit. They were that, and he had to take abuse from one or two members of the crew. On one occasion, Keno finally stepped in, beating one of the punchers into insensibility. “Any of you want the same, just lay a hand on the kid,” he threatened, and there was no more trouble.

  Zane couldn’t help but overhear the careless talk of the crew, and within two weeks, he knew for sure that the Littleton outfit did more than raise cattle—they stole from others. He said nothing, of course. Sooner or later he knew he’d have to leave, but first he had to have a stake.

  The weeks rolled by, and Zane saved every penny he earned. During that time, the men came and went—sometimes being gone for a week or more—and when they came back, he heard their boasts about the job they’d pulled off. One of the hands, an older man named Bill Tippit, didn’t come back. When Zane asked Keno if he had quit, the puncher gave him a hard look, warning, “Don’t poke your nose into things, Zane.”

  Zane wrote to his sister, mailing the letter at a small town where he went to get supplies. He never went alone, and the puncher who accompanied him was suspicious. He grabbed the envelope, studied the name, then demanded, “Who’s this Hope Malloy?”

  “My sister.”

  The puncher handed it back with a shrug, saying no more.

  More and more Zane felt like a prisoner. He had time on his hands and spent most of it at the corrals, riding the rough stock. There were always half-broken horses, and when Charlie Littleton saw that he was good at breaking them, he offered him ten dollars for every horse he broke. He earned enough to buy himself another horse, a rangy gray with an easy gait that ate up the miles.

  He’d been at the Slash R for nearly three months when the whole crew rode out late one afternoon. Dion Littleton had come for them, saying to Zane, “You keep an eye on the place, boy.” Zane had watched Dion lead them all out and was surprised that no one stayed back. Usually at least one or two of the men were kept on the place, mostly as guards, Zane knew.

  They didn’t return that night, but Zane didn’t expect them back. The next day he kept watching the horizon, but still there was no sign of them. He worked with the horses, ate at noon, and later went hunting in the hills. He got nothing and came back to find the men still gone. He went to bed, vaguely alarmed.

  He awoke with a start, brought out of a deep sleep by the sound of horses’ hooves. Springing out of bed, he pulled on his pants and boots. He stumbled out of his small room off the kitchen, and when he stepped out on the porch, the crew was dismounting.

  “Get them into the big room,” Charlie Littleton commanded. There was a hard edge in his voice that Zane had not heard before. He peered across the yard and saw by the pale moonlight that some of the men were hurt, and then Keno called out, “Lend a hand, Zane—!” He hurried across to help the cowboy ease a man down from the saddle. “Easy—he got it in the side,” Keno said, and when they had carried the wounded man into the big room, Zane saw that it was Ray. His shirt was soaked with blood, and his face was white as bone.

  “Get some hot water and some clean rags,” Keno ordered, his voice flat.

  Zane ran out of the room, noting that two other men were being helped into the room, but he didn’t wait to identify them. He stirred up the fire, heated water, and then returned. One of the men, a young puncher named Pinto Smith, was sitting in a chair with his wounded leg propped on another chair. Charlie Littleton was saying, “Didn’t hit bone, Pinto. Ought to be all right.” He saw Zane enter and waved him over. “Bring that stuff over here, Jenson—” He began at once to clean out the wound while asking Keno, “How’s Ray doing?”

  “Not so good. Lost a lot of blood.”

  One of the hands had been bending over the third man. He suddenly straightened up and said, “This one’s finished.”

  Dion Littleton went to look down at the man, reached out and put his heavy hand on the man’s chest, then nodded. “Malloy’s dead meat.” He shrugged, then went to get a swig from the whiskey bottle that was going around.

  Zane seemed to freeze where he stood, for none of the crew was named Malloy. He stared at the dead man, but the face was turned away from him. He moved slowly across the room, his chest tight, and when he came to stand over the still form, he saw at once that it was Willis Malloy.

  The room seemed to reel, and a faint humming sounded in his ears. Looking down on the gray face, he tried to feel something, but death had taken away his hatred for the man.

  Charlie Littleton had finished the dressing on Pinto’s leg. When he turned, he got a glimpse of Zane’s face. A frown creased his brow and he went to stand beside the boy. “What’s the matter, Zane? You never saw a dead man before?”

  Zane licked his lips and had to clear his throat before he could speak. Finally he said in a thin voice, “That’s—my sister’s husband!”

  His words drew the eyes of all the crew, and Charlie Littleton’s eyes were alert. “You never told me you had folks around here.”

  “He kicked me out—back on the trail,” Zane said. “I wanted to kill him—but I guess it’s over now.”

  Littleton didn’t answer, and Zane left the room, feeling sick and frightened. He went to sit on the back porch, trying to think, but he was not able to get his thoughts together.

  Finally Charlie Littleton came out and stood over him. “Ray didn’t make it.” The news didn’t seem to mean much to Zane, who looked up and said nothing. Littleton hesitated, then shrugged. “We gotta bury him. What about Malloy? You want us to bury him, too?”

  Zane tried hard to concentrate, then shook his head. “I—guess I better take him home, Mr. Littleton. He wasn’t no good—but he’s my sister’s husband. If he gets buried, I guess the ranch will be hers, but if he just disappears, I dunno—”

  “I guess you know what happened, Jenson. You’re not dumb.”

  “I reckon you were rustlin’ cattle.”

  “That’s it. And you know about it.”

  The threat hung in the air, and Zane knew that he was on a fine thread. “I’ve never seen any rustling. All I’ve done is cook. Nobody even knows I’ve been here at the Slash R.”

  Littleton nodded slowly. “I’m giving you a break. Take Malloy out of here. If you ever squeal on me, I’ll kill you or have it done. You understand that?”

  “Yeah, I won’t say nothin’.”

  “All right. But Arrow was the outfit that shot us up. When they hear about Malloy getting shot, they’ll put two and
two together. Tell your sister to bury the man, but wait a week. Then let the word get out that he got killed by a bad horse or something like that.”

  “I’ll tell her and my pa.”

  “I’ll have the boys tie Malloy onto your spare horse.”

  Twenty minutes later Zane rode out of the yard, the body of Malloy secured to his gray. There were no farewells, except from Charlie Littleton, who warned, “You’re a dead man if you let this get out, Jenson!”

  “I’ll keep quiet—but I don’t even know how to get to my sister’s place.” He listened as Littleton gave him directions, then rode out.

  Dion came to stand beside his brother. “Should’ve shut him up, Charlie.”

  “He won’t talk, Dion,” Charlie shrugged. “He knows he’s dead if he so much as peeps.”

  Zane followed Littleton’s instructions, but he was scared as he made the trip. If anyone saw him, he would be in trouble. He rode for the rest of the night, and kept to the hills and timber all morning. At three o’clock he came over a rise that Littleton had described and saw a ranch house in the elbow of a small stream, exactly as the rustler had said.

  Still he was nervous, so he tied his spare horse, with Malloy’s body still slung across its back, securely to a sapling, then rode off down the slope. As he crossed the creek, he saw Cody come out of the house and called out, “Cody—it’s me—Zane!”

  He rode into the yard, and by the time he got there, his sister and his father were there to greet him. They were babbling and pulling at him, but he could not say a word. He hadn’t realized how much he had missed them.

  Finally his father said, “Come in the house, son.”

  Zane asked, “Where’s Ozzie?”

  “Why, in town, Zane.”

  “I—gotta tell you something, Pa—all of you.”

  “Are you in trouble, Zane?” Hope asked anxiously.

  “I think we all are,” he said. Quickly he told them about working for the Littletons. “I didn’t know they was crooks when I went there, and they never asked me to do nothin’ wrong. All I done was cook.” He bit his lip, then continued, “But they went out two days ago, and it was to rustle some cattle. When they came back last night, some of them was hurt.”