Goodnight's Dream (A Floating Outfit Western Book 4) (11 page)

‘
That’s a real fine hoss,
Cap’n Fog,’ Dawn remarked,
noticing that he carried a short rifle of
some sort in his saddle-boot. ‘I’ll bet he’s a fighter.’

‘
He’s all of that,’ Dusty
agreed. Before he had ridden and mastered the big paint, it had
thrown and crippled Ole Devil Hardin.
^xiii
‘Why’d you gather those cattle,
Miss—?’

‘
Sutherland,’ the girl supplied,
blushing a little. ‘Dawn Sutherland. It’s about time for the buyer
from the Brazoria hide-and-tallow factory to come around. So we’d
got a bunch of steers gathered and held to sell to him.’

With conditions so bad in Texas, Dusty could
imagine that the Sutherlands had a serious need of the money the
cattle would bring. Supporting the Confederacy in the War, the
people of the Lone Star State found themselves holding a worthless
currency with the South’s defeat. In that respect Dusty’s kin had
been fortunate. Due to the foresight of Ole Devil, most of the
clan’s wealth had been in gold or invested overseas. So the OD
Connected possessed sufficient funds to tide it over. Others had
not been so lucky. Most likely the Sutherlands lived from hand to
mouth, relying on being able to sell their stock where they could.
The loss of the small herd would have dire results unless the
steers could be recovered.

‘
We’ll see that you get them all back,’
Dusty promised.

Going out to the herd, Dusty
explained to Goodnight why his arrival had been delayed. He, Mark
and the Kid had been helping a family of mustangers catch wild
horses and fight against a murderous band of Mexican
bandidos.
^xiv
On reaching the herd, Goodnight
decided that they would delay the cutting until Chisum arrived.
Before he came, Dusty’s two companions rode up and Dawn saw that
she had guessed correctly about their horses. Impatient to find her
cattle, the girl rode off to circle the herd. Watching her go,
while removing the bedroll from his white’s saddle, the Kid
addressed the small Texan.

‘
They’re locked away, Dusty, and I’d
say that they’ll stay that way if the sheriff has anything to do
with it.’

‘
Ward Kater’s a good peace officer,
Kid,’ Goodnight put in. ‘He’ll do whatever’s right.’

‘
Thing I don’t like’s how easy those
three yahoos took it,’ Mark commented. ‘You’d’ve expected them to
act a mite worried at least; but if they were, they sure didn’t
show it.’

‘
Maybe they’re figuring on somebody
helping them,’ Dusty suggested. ‘Did Targue say anything to
them?’

‘
Only to shut their mouths, not to tell
lies and to get into the cells,’ Mark replied. ‘They went in quiet
enough after that.’

‘
Where’s Targue now?’ Goodnight
inquired.

‘
Allowed he was going back for his
boss,’ Mark answered. ‘The sheriff says he’ll hold those three
yahoos until we’ve cut the herd. Then, if the gal wants it that
way, she can go in and swear a complaint against them.’

‘
I reckon she’ll want to,’ Dusty
guessed. ‘She’s pot boiling mad and I can’t say I blame her. Know
something, Uncle Charlie, I’m getting real interested to see what
we find when we cut that herd.’

‘
And me,’ Goodnight admitted. ‘Until
you boys cut in, I’ll admit I was just a mite suspicious about her
coming here with that story.’

‘
How come, Uncle Charlie?’

‘
I’m not the only one with my eye on
the Army beef contracts, Dustine. There were a couple of Yankee
businessmen at Sumner and they looked some down in the mouth when I
got the first contract. So I wondered if maybe they could have
fixed up this play to make trouble for me.’

‘
They didn’t know we were around,’
Dusty said. ‘It’s not likely they’d’ve gone to the trouble of
having the girl hide while they drove off the herd.’

‘
I know,’ agreed Goodnight. ‘So it
looks like she’s telling the truth.’

At that moment the girl
returned and brought her
bayo-tigre
to a halt. Excitement flickered on her face and
she pointed towards the cattle.

‘
I reckon I’ve seen some
of mine,’ she announced. ‘There’s a big
golondrino
muley I’d know any old place on
the other side of the herd.’

Although
golondrino—
dunnish brown merging into
black, with white speckles or blotches on the rump—was not an
unusual color, a muley’s hornless head made it noticeable. To a
girl like Dawn, raised on a ranch and having worked around it most
of her growing life, recognizing cattle came almost naturally. The
men reckoned that she knew enough to identify a noticeable animal
belonging to her spread.

‘
You want for me to go and cut it out,
Dusty?’ Mark asked.

‘
Best leave it until Chisum gets here,’
the small Texan decided.

‘
Which’ll be right soon,’ drawled the
Kid. ‘He’s coming right now, and bringing company.’

‘
Seven of ’em, not
counting John and Pitzer,’ Goodnight went on, studying the
approaching party. ‘Got their chuck wagon along, and
the
remuda’s
following.’

Which could be a suspicious point, or
harmless. If Chisum was an innocent victim, he would take the
opportunity to join up with Goodnight’s herd. Should he be involved
in theft of Dawn’s cattle, Chisum knew Goodnight well enough to be
aware that their partnership was over.

‘
They’re an ornery-looking bunch,’ Dawn
remarked.

‘
Real ornery,’ Dusty agreed. ‘How about
the four fellers with the herd, Uncle Charlie?’

‘
They’re my boys,’ the rancher
answered.

‘
Damned if we don’t near on have ’em
out-numbered,’ said the Kid and looked at the butt of the rifle in
his saddle boot.

‘
Injuns never learn to count, ma’am,’
Mark explained to Dawn who was hurriedly doing mental
arithmetic.

‘
Looks that way,’ the girl
smiled.

‘
Leave it, you
danged
Pehnane
slit-eye!’ Dusty hissed as the Kid bent in a casual manner
towards the rifle. ‘Mr. Chisum’s Uncle Charlie’s
friend.’

‘
You got friends like him, you don’t
need enemies,’ grinned the Kid and straightened up
empty-handed.

‘
I’ll tell you whether he’s my friend
after we’ve cut the herd,’ Goodnight growled, his face tight-lipped
and grim, and waved his hand.

At their boss’s signal, the four cowhands
left their places around the herd and converged on him. They were
tanned, leathery men with low-hanging guns; but not the surly,
hardcase kind hired by Chisum. Asking no questions, the four
Swinging G cowhands took positions ideally suited to backing
Goodnight in any play he made.

The chuckwagon and
remuda
came to a halt
about a hun
dred yards from where Goodnight’s party waited. Drawing
nearer, Chisum’s hands studied the Swinging G and OD Connected
men.

‘
We’re going to cut the herd,’
Goodnight announced and saw the disconcerted way in which Pitzer—a
dandy-dressed, younger edition of his brother—and the Chisum
cowhands exchanged glances. ‘I want all the D4S cattle you find
bringing out here.’

‘
You heard Colonel Charlie,’ Chisum
called. ‘Let’s get to it.’

‘
I’d say it’d be quicker if we work in
pairs, Uncle Charlie,’ Dusty put in. ‘You go with Mr. Chisum, I’ll
side Targue and Mark’ll help Pitzer.’

‘
That’s how we’ll do it,’ Goodnight
agreed, grinning inwardly as he caught the purpose of Dusty’s idea.
‘Two men can see a whole heap more than one.’

Giving Chisum no time to
organize a protest, Goodnight assigned the Kid, Dawn or one of his
men to work with each of the Long Rail hands. The girl found
herself paired up with a lantern-jawed hardcase who eyed her in a
cold, threatening manner. For a moment she felt just a touch of
fear. Once among the cattle it would be easy to arrange for an
‘accident’ to happen. A quick, unseen push to topple her from
the
bayo-tigre’s
back and her chances of escape would be slight. On
foot among the cattle, she was certain to be attacked and gored
before the men could save her.

Then Dawn saw the Kid rein in his white
stallion at her companion’s side.

‘
Look after the lady, feller,’ the dark
youngster purred in that gentle tone so well known and feared in
the lower Rio Grande border country. ‘Just as a lil favor for me.
I’ll be close by to thank you.’

Which meant, as Dawn and—from the expression
on his face—the hardcase knew, ‘Don’t try anything. If the girl
gets hurt in any way, so will you only a whole heap worse.’

‘
Sure, Kid,’ the man gulped. ‘I’ll do
just that.’

‘
We’ll start round the other side,’
Dawn decided and, with the Kid hovering menacingly in the
background, the Long Rail hardcase raised no objections.

Circling around the herd, the
girl watched until she saw the
golondrino
muley. Experience had taught her that
longhorns tended to be clannish. Even when mixed in a large herd,
they would try to stick close to familiar faces among the
strangers. That ought to make cutting out her stock a comparatively
simple task.

Pointing out the muley to the
man, Dawn edged her
bayo-tigre
into the herd. With the Kid’s threat still echoing in his
ears, the hardcase followed. While not a praying man under normal
conditions, he came mighty close to doing so and requesting that
divine providence kept the girl from harm. If she met with even a
genuine accident, the Long Rail hand figured himself to have mighty
short life-expectancy. The Ysabel Kid did not hand out a warning
unless he fully intended to carry it through all the
way.

While Dawn eased the
golondrino
clear of the herd,
the hardcase spotted other cattle bearing her father’s D4S brand.
On their way from town, Chisum had told his men what had happened
and given certain instructions. Yet the hardcase saw no way in
which he might carry them out, not with the girl at his side and
watching his every move. So he accepted the inevitable and forced
another of the Sutherland longhorns into the open.

Not far from where Dawn was working the Kid
and his partner helped to cut out more of the D4S cattle.
Considering their experience in such matters, it came as something
of a surprise for the girl to see that Dusty, Mark and Goodnight
made no attempt to join her where her cattle were concentrated.
Instead they seemed more concerned with combing the less productive
areas of the herd. Once she noticed Chisum pointing her way and
clearly making a suggestion that he and Goodnight should join her,
but he was refused. The bearded rancher’s face grew into colder,
grimmer lines as the work continued.

Instead of being allowed to skim through the
herd and produce a few of the D4S cattle, each of the Long Rail men
found himself accompanied by a rider who meant to see the work was
done correctly. Even without needing to be told, Goodnight’s
cowhands guessed what lay behind Dusty’s suggestion of pairing up
to cut the herd. So the combing-out process was very thorough. At
the end of it something over a hundred steers, all with a large D4S
brand burned indelibly on their left flanks, stood clear of the
main bunch.

With the work completed, the two parties
gathered behind their respective leaders. In view of what she had
seen while working among the cattle, Dawn felt sure that a showdown
between Goodnight and Chisum was close at hand. For all that,
Chisum showed little sign of concern.

‘
I’d say that’s all you lost, Miss
Sutherland,’ the rancher stated, shoving back his hat and mopping
his bald head with a cheap bandana. ‘And I’d like to say that I
don’t know how they got mixed in with my herd.’

‘
Maybe Pitzer can tell us,’ Goodnight
suggested coldly.

‘
Sure I can,’ the younger Chisum
brother agreed. ‘Them three fellers drove ’em in just’s we was
bedding down for the night. Targue and me was on the other side of
the herd and Keck just shoved ’em straight in with our’n. Allowed
they was a bunch of mavericks when I asked.’

To anybody who knew Pitzer’s character, the
answer was feasible. He had a disinclination to work and would be
unlikely to investigate the trio’s story too closely if doing so
required effort on his part. Unfortunately the combing of the herd
had been very thorough and brought out a major discrepancy in young
Chisum’s glib tale.

‘
Did the same thing happen with all
those Bench P steers I saw?’ Mark asked. ‘And to those Rocking N
and Double Two stock you’ve got along?’

‘
Or to the Flying H ’n’ Lazy F stuff
that’s there?’ the Kid went on.

‘
I saw
some
mavericks,’ Dusty
continued. ‘Even a few maps of Mexico.
^xv
Fact being, Mr. Chisum, the only
brand I didn’t see any place in that herd was the Long
Rail.’

Silence, broken only by the slight restless
moving of the horses, dropped ominously after Dusty’s blunt
statement and the two sides eyed each other warily. Every man
present, and the girl, knew the implications behind the small
Texan’s words. So the hired hands waited and watched to see how
their respective employers wanted the situation to develop.