Diamond Buckow (26 page)

When Diamond didn't respond, Russ suggested, “If you want, I could be the one to stay with the other fellow's beeves.”

Diamond lifted his head sharply. “Sounds a lot better to me. Only I'll need Jake to help with our herd. He wouldn't be able to start toward the P.P. headquarters 'til we had them home.”

“That's fine by me,” Russ agreed. “I could use a good, long rest.”

“If you're sure you
want
to do it. It's not likely, but if the men who own the steers you're watching come up on you, they'll think you're in the process of stealing 'em.”

Russ grinned one of his rare smiles. “Don't worry about a thing, Boss. I've had experience keepin' track of other people's cattle.”

Diamond shot him a grim look, and Russ laughed nervously.

“Hell, don't even think what you're a-thinkin'. I've turned over a new leaf, honest. Ain't about to get in trouble with you.”

Diamond thought, and finally made his decision. “Good enough. That way I can keep a rein on Harve 'til the job's complete.”

He turned his horse and rode back to help with the drag.

It took all of that day and most of the next to get the herd to the basin, which was for years afterward known as The Rustlers' Pasture.

After supper Diamond said, “Let's take our time sorting out these critters. There's good graze. We're all tired, and so are the cattle. When we pull out with our Running Diamond beeves, Russ'll stay behind to keep the rest from straying.”

He paused to look Harve in the eye and then continued, “All the rest of us '11 be going back to my headquarters.”

Harve looked right back, not batting an eye. Finally he dropped his gaz.e and turned away, with his face toward the cookfire.

“Russ,” Diamond said, “we'll leave you enough grub for a week. Wish I could do more, but we're gettin' low. You might be here alone for that long. Jake can't start out to find Thompson 'til we get our own herd home. If all goes good, he could be back in four days. But if Wide Loop isn't home and Jake has to ride all the way into Dodge to find him, a week might not be enough.”

Russ carefully scratched at the healing wound on his head.

“Don't worry none over me, Boss. I been alone afore, and when I got to I can stretch a week's grub out for a hell of a long time.”

Diamond reflected. Even with the possibility of great danger ahead, his old trail partner was easy and cheerful. It made him feel a lot better for Russ to stay and Harve to go along where he could watch him. Diamond rolled up in his blanket and got a good night's sleep.

The next day his lighter mood was contagious. The men laughed and joked more than they had since the day they discovered the theft of the breeding herd. Still, Diamond watched Harve without appearing to. The man responded to the teasing, but he didn't talk much.

At dark of the second day, when they at last reached the Running Diamond, Harve silently claimed an unused bunk and turned in. Diamond, Jake, and Sean all told an anxious Tom Dobbins their version of the adventure.

Diamond began with a few terse, clipped sentences. Jake filled in more details of trailing and retrieving the cattle, but tried to slide past the big fight as quickly as possible. Sean O'Malley, however, leaped in with enthusiasm, especially about the gun battle with Glenn Saltwell.

Diamond tried to head him off, but Tom refused to stand still for that.

“Damn it!” Dobbins exploded. “For once, let the boy talk. I'll get a better picture from him. If you've buried the leader of the gang that's been stealing cattle off this range for too damned many years, I sure want to know about it.”

His younger partner froze momentarily, shocked at Tom's sudden and unaccustomed strong language.

“All right, Tom. Whatever you want,” Diamond said as he turned and headed for the bunkroom.

Jake Strickland rode out into the pearl gray pre-sunrise light. Diamond was there to see him off and shake his hand.

“Be careful, Jake. Don't you trust Wide Loop any further'n you would an ornery old range bull. He can be just as treacherous.”

He stood and watched until Strickland was gone out of sight, then turned away shivering from a cold, lonely chill. His mood darkened as he saw a man walking toward him. Harve would want his pay, and Diamond saw no way to hold him any longer. He gave him what he was due and stood looking after him as Harve traveled in the direction of Dodge City.

Diamond would recall for many years how frustrated he felt as he watched Harve ride away. He knew he should have been glad to get rid of anybody associated with Glenn Saltwell—anybody other than his old sidekick Russ. But there gnawed this feeling, this other odd emotion, and there was no way in hell he could shake it.

He used Sean O'Malley hard, and he even tried to put Tom to work. Diamond himself was up before the sun every day, and still going strong when it got too dark of an evening to keep on.

Dobbins put up with it for two days. On the morning of the third he announced over breakfast, “I'm going on home to Garden City, where folks don't work but a fourteen-hour day.”

Diamond quickly looked up. “Tom. If I've been too hard on you, I'm sure sorry.”

A dry smile spread across Dobbins's face. “That's all right. Leastways now I know how so much got done in such a short time out here.”

Diamond read his friend's eyes—Tom was trying to ease the tension.

“Somehow, Tom, I just don't feel right about Jake's riding around to see people who thought he was a rustler. Nor Russ's being out there alone holding cattle that belong to those selfsame ranchers.”

He shifted in his chair. Light from the new day highlighted the worry wrinkles around his eyes. Tom noticed, and his tone was gentle.

“Well, if you think something is wrong, why don't you go see? Look, if it'll help any, I'll go to Dodge on my way home. They's a bunch of mares bred to a good stud there that might be for sale, and I been wanting to get a-hold of 'em. Give me a nice chance to keep my eyes peeled. Wouldn't be much off my road to stop and see Thompson, then swing down to the Standing Arrow on my way in to town.”

Diamond's eyes flickered. “You do that, Tom, with thanks. Me and Sean'll just ride back to where we left Russ with the cattle. We'll start looking for Jake from that end.”

They left the kitchen, and Diamond found O'Malley. The half-breed needed no further orders. He hurried to saddle two good mounts, wanting them to be well on their way before his boss remembered that somebody should always be left on the ranch to take care of things.

Diamond shouted after Sean, “Get Tom's horse ready, and a couple more for you and me to lead.”

They rode back to the basin fast, with no cattle to slow them down, and with the advantage of an extra mount apiece. Early in the afternoon Diamond and Sean came up on the place where they had left Russ with five hundred head of cattle. They slowed their approach and looked around carefully. Something was wrong, and they both felt it.

As they came in sight of the natural holding area, it was too quiet. No cattle met their view. They slowed their horses to a walk and made for the water hole where Russ had made camp. While the mounts drank the men searched everything—no cattle, no camp. Where was Russ?

Diamond waited tensely for the horses to get their fill.

Then he said to Sean, “We'll separate—see if we can find any answers. But let's not get too far apart.”

They mounted and moved away. Diamond yelled, “Signal if you see anything at all, and I'll come running.”

The breed nodded.

Minutes later, Diamond looked over to keep track of the kid. Sean was not moving. He sat slumped in his saddle, staring at something on the ground under a lone tree. Diamond wheeled Bones and spurred up beside the breed.

Two forms lay on the grass, the ropes still around their stretched necks. It looked like the executioners hadn't tied the ends of the ropes and ridden off, as Newt Yocum had done with Diamond some years ago.

Seemed as though the other ends of the two ropes had been held while the men died. Then when both were finished, the ropes were let go and the slack bodies fell to the ground.

Neither Sean nor Diamond spoke for a long time as they stood staring. O'Malley at length licked his dry lips and asked in a harsh voice choked with tangled emotions, “What do you think Harve was a-doing here?”

Diamond could feel fury rising in him, fury like a twister about to vent itself.

“We'll never know,” he said grimly. “Might've come here to help Russ. Then again he just might've been trying to talk Russ into taking these cattle somewhere and selling 'em. I don't feel too bad about him. He never meant to go straight, as far as I know.”

Sean nodded, his black eyes somber. He watched the pain and hurt flare across his boss's face as Diamond smacked a fist into the palm of his other hand.

“It's Russ that makes me mad,” Diamond growled “He probably helped steal more cattle than six like Harve, but he was really going straight this time. I know he'd have made it without Glenn to lead him off. I could have helped him. I never should've let him stay here alone.”

“Boss, there ain't no use you thinkin' this is your fault,” Sean protested.

He watched Diamond's agony-carved face as it tilted up at the sky.

“We was a-trying to get them cattle back to their rightful owners, Boss. Whoever done this would have done it, no matter which had stayed.”

Diamond didn't answer. He dismounted stiffly and began to dig a grave.

When O'Malley made to enlarge it, Diamond said, “No, just for Harve. You take Russ's body back to the ranch. I want him buried proper on that hill back of where the old soddy used to be. You see to it.”

When they had dumped Harve's carcass into the hole and covered it over, Sean asked, “Why don't you come help me bury Russ? Then we can go and look for Jake together.”

Diamond's answer exploded. “No, by God! This is my job. If I'd settled the score with those two ranchers years ago, this could never have happened. No, I'll see to Jake. You go back with Russ's body, Sean, and take both extra hosses with you.”

He turned Bones's head toward the P.P. headquarters. As he rode along he felt a cold certainty seep into him. This trip, he knew, would end the unfinished business that had dragged him for years. His only question was Strickland and what had happened to him.

God, what if Thompson and Blough, out for blood, had somehow connected Jake with the two they'd already murdered?

Diamond pushed his favorite horse hard. They rode into the Pied Piper yard just before sundown. An old man with a permanently bent back greeted him in front on the bunkhouse.

“Howdy, there. Get down and rest a spell.”

As Diamond swung out of the saddle he asked his question.

“Where's the boss?”

“Ain't here. Ain't nobody been here but me'n the Mex cook for coupla-three days.”

Diamond frowned at the gap-toothed grin. “Does he usually leave just you two to hold the place down?”

“No, sir. That he don't.” The old-timer grinned again. “Only this time I reckon he thought he needed all the help along with him.”

Diamond worked to keep his tone level. “How so? Something special going on?”

“Bet your bottom dollar they is. Old Wide Loop tore hell-bent out of here. Said he was off to hang some cattle rustlers and put a end to their underhanded doin's. Real bet up, he was.”

“Just Thompson and his men? Or was somebody else in on it, too?”

Blood pounded in Diamond's ears.

“Onliest other one was that young fella who works for Henry Blough. He come a-ridin' in here the other mornin' on a horse all lathered up worst than yours.”

Diamond held his temper while the old man let fly a stream of tobacco juice and shifted his cud to the other side of his mouth.

“Was him, the young'un,” the coot went on, “that brung whatever news made the boss see red.”

Something broke in Diamond and he grabbed the man's shirt front, hauling him up onto his toes.

“I want to know when this Standing Arrow hand rode in here with his news. Word for word, I want what he said to Thompson. What time did your boss leave with his crew? And you'd best be able to tell me some on where they might be now.”

The oldster looked grotesque, held up and with his head bent back so he could see into Diamond's face. Unkempt gray hair dangled over his rounded shoulders, and his voice quavered.

“Stranger, I'll tell you whatever I can if'n you'll just leave go of my shirt.”

The ranch hand all but fell when Diamond released his grip. He took two steps backward and abruptly sat down on a bench beside the door of the bunkhouse.

“I'm too old to be manhandled thataway,” he muttered. “You're the third one. It's just too much.”

Diamond blinked. “What do you mean, the third one? The third what?”

The old man took a deep, shaky breath. “First one was him that used to work here, Jake Something-or-other. He come night afore last. Made himself right to home just like he still belonged here. Then in the mornin' when he found out Wide Loop was after rustlers, he grabbed me by the shirt front like you just done. Wanted to hit me in the worst kind of way. I guess he believed what I told him, 'cause he threw the hull on his cayuse and lit out of here like a hound with a cob up his ass.”

“Which way did he go?” Diamond asked, as the violent anger drained away.

“A bit south of east. Could've been goin' either to Dodge or the Standing Arrow. Ain't no way for me to be sure which.”

Diamond started away but turned back. “And you said there was still another here looking for information?”

An odd, crooked smile washed over the old man. “Oh, yeah. A real gent, compared to you and that Jake fella. Come in here on a buggy, asked a hunnerd questions, 'n left in the same direction as the first'un. His buggy just bounced all over the trail.”