Silvertip's Strike (15 page)

Closely as he harkened, he had not distinguished the sound of a gun during the interim. Perhaps Rutherford and Delgas and Waring were patching up the last details of their agreement; perhaps they intended to wait until the final moment before the herd was pushed up into the hills before they killed Dan Farrel and left him on the ground to be battered by the trampling hoofs beyond all recognition.

Silver scratched a match.

“Hey, Ferris, is that you?” yelled a voice not far away. “Cut in there and do your bit! Climb into it, kid!”

Silver touched the flame of the match to the ends of the three fuses, one quite short, the others longer. He had three portions of death in his grasp then. Even Parade, steel-nerved under most circumstances, now began to dance uneasily as he saw the sparkling blue fire run sputtering up the fuses.

Silver, with a yell, drove the stallion straight at the herd.

Off to his right, he saw a rider phantom-gray in the dust, and heard the man cursing with bewildered surprise. The sweep of the outer flank of the milling cattle came into clearer view. He saw the dull sheen of their eyes, the tossing of the horns like crooked spears continually stabbing at the air, and full at the mass of them he threw the dynamite with the shortest fuse attached.

It had seemed to him that he had waited until the fire was fairly kissing the dynamite, and yet there was no uproar of an explosion. Instead, the dynamite rolled under the feet of the first steers and was instantly out of sight.

He turned the stallion, with a groan, to try again farther down the head of the crowding cattle. Then, behind him, he heard the explosion and felt the weight of it in the air about him, a soft and ponderous blow that made Parade leap like a hare.

Glancing back, he could see several of the steers down, struggling. Those poor, mangled creatures would never rise again. But from about them the rest of the cattle were pressing back, throwing up their heads, trying to climb over the backs of the steers which still were surging up from the depths of the valley. It seemed to Silver that he had done no more than throw a bucket of water against the sweep of a sea, so small was the reaction.

But he went on, yelling like a fiend.

The second fuse had burned short. He set his teeth, counted three, and flung it. It burst in the very air, flattening several animals. He went on and cast the third stick far over against the farther side of the valley's head, into the thick of the steers.

Again some of the poor creatures went down. But the rest were turning rapidly to escape these thunderbolts. With a frantic bawling the entire front of the herd wheeled and pressed back. It was slow work. The mass of the cattle remained before the terrified vanguard, a living wall against retreat unless the panic should spread to them.

Right and left, now, Silver saw riders making toward him. He heard the shouting of the many voices. He thought he could make out the tremendous uproar of Delgas above the rest, thundering like a wounded bull.

For his own part, Silver was pushing close in behind the van, close into the stifling fog of dust through which he was only vaguely aware of the twisting, swirling masses of confused backs, and of swaying horns. It made him dizzy, like looking into the fling and leap of water as it runs down a cataract.

He shouted; he yelled; he fired guns in the face of any beast that chanced to turn back toward him. Far before him, he could hear the rear guard of cow-punchers shooting their Colts to keep the cattle near them from turning in a stampede.

Close beside him, a voice drove in, screaming out curses. A bullet touched his hat, jerked at it with a small but deadly touch. He shot that fellow out of the saddle and saw the frightened cow pony go crash into the wall of the herd.

But it was no longer quite a solid wall. It was splitting up. A shudder was working through the mass of the steers; the solidity of the throng opened into cracks that filled, closed, opened again. It was like watching a quicksand at work. Then all that quicksand began to flow, slowly, more quickly, as fast as a man could run, as fast, almost, as a horse could gallop.

Parade followed close to the swinging tails.

It was dangerous work. The dust streamed back at them in dense up-pourings that blinded the eyes. But eyes were needed to see the crumpled, red-washed bodies that lay on ground, here and there, where some unlucky steer had fallen and been beaten instantly to death by heavy hoofs.

Through rifts in the flying dust, Silver, muffled to the eyes in a bandanna so that breathing could be possible, saw the walls of the ravine, one black with shadow, one gleaming with the moon.

That gleaming wall he saw thrust out a straight-faced bluff where the valley narrowed a trifle. It was easy to see and easy to avoid, with the moon striking the front of it as if it glanced from white marble; but the steers could not turn, no matter what they saw through the blindness of their fear. There was no shifting inward, because the little valley was blocked from side to side, jammed with the sweep of the running cattle. There was no halting or turning back, because the rearward cattle picked up those in front and hurled them forward.

So Silver saw a living wave strike the face of that bluff, pile instantly high on it, bank the angle full with the dead, and so shunt the remnant safely past the danger point.

It was enough to break a man's heart to see good beef wasted in this fashion, but in a moment like that the salvation of the entire herd was what Silver had to think of.

Then, before him, he saw the herd thinning. He knew by that that they were approaching the mouth of the valley. Presently the dust cloud thinned away. Breaths and puffs of sweet, fresh air came to him like a salvation. The myriad beating of the hoofs no more kept the ground quivering beneath him, but scattered far and wide.

He rode off to the right, drawing up Parade to a canter. He was off to the side of the valley's mouth when he saw other riders fly by him, half revealed through the dust, sweeping on to head off the stampede, if possible.

But Silver, drawing back into a corner of the hills, observed the onward course of the living avalanche which he had started and was content. Stampeding steers are not easily turned, and they do not easily lose their momentum. Far, far away across the desert the dust cloud blew, rolled small and smaller, dwindled, seemed no more than an obscure smoke that was barely visible beneath the moon.

After it had dwindled like this, he saw, from his shadow-filled cranny, the thing that he had hoped to see.

Out of the valley's mouth proceeded a small group of riders, among whom he recognized Rutherford, Waring, and Red. With them came a tall fellow who sat with his hands tied behind his back and had his horse's lead rope attached to Waring's saddle.

That was poor Danny Farrel. The stampede had given him the grace of a little more life, but in a way it seemed to have made his death almost the more sure. For every one of the group would be savagely hungry for blood after the disappointment of that night.

Moonlight swallows things quickly, even when there is the clear air of the desert for it to shine through. That cavalcade disappeared and left an ache in the back of Silver's brain as he recalled the straight back and the high head of poor Dan Farrel.

Why had they saved him? Perhaps — it had been Silver's hope from the first — because with the cattle scattered and Jim Silver abroad to make further mischief, Rutherford and the rest would be glad to have him alive as a bargaining point.

It was in this hope that he calmly unsaddled Parade that night, wrapped himself in slicker and blanket, and, with the saddle for a pillow went to sleep.

Twice Parade wakened him, snuffing close to his face and stamping to give the alarm. Once it was merely a wolf that had come out on the shoulder of the hill to look down on man. Once it was for some taint that had blown to Parade on the air; but, when Silver could see nothing, he lay down again and slept peacefully until the sun put a warm hand on his face.

He got up, washed his eyes and mouth with water from his canteen, swallowed a few drops of the liquid, and then pulled up his belt two notches to take the place of breakfast. Parade, grazing the tough gramma grass at a short distance from his master, came back and stood with downward head, dozing, while Silver smoked a cigarette.

After a time the stallion went off to graze again, while Silver waited through the hot hours. For once in his life he had no plan beyond that waiting.

A glad man was Jim Silver when, late in the morning, he saw a rider jog toward him across the sands from the direction of the ranch house. He watched the little puffs of dust that squirted out from the feet of the horse as the rider drew nearer. Then he made out the bulky form of none other than Sam Waring, who stopped at a considerable distance and waved a white rag or handkerchief slowly back and forth.

Silver grinned as he watched. He took out a bandanna and waved that in answer. Waring seemed still in doubt, but finally he came on slowly. Twice and again he paused for further thought, but at length he rode straight up to the place where Silver sat on a rock, inhaling the smoke of a cigarette.

The hesitation that had appeared in Waring's actions was not in his speech. He summoned a broad smile and waved his hand at Silver.

“All safe and friendly, brother, eh?” he asked cheerfully.

Silver made a noncommittal gesture.

“It seemed a good time for a little talk,” said Waring, “so the boys sent me out to find you. They thought you'd be around this valley, somewhere — and here you are.”

“Get off the horse and sit down, Waring,” suggested Silver. “You don't look happy there. You're too high in the air.”

Waring laughed as he got down to the ground.

“I ain't what I used to be in a saddle,” he confessed. “There was a day when I fitted onto a hoss like a clothespin onto a line. But that day's gone, and now I'm kind of swelled up and wabbling with fat.”

He sat down on a rock near Silver, took off his hat, mopped his fleshy brow, and went on:

“I've come to talk about young Farrel, of course.”

Silver nodded.

“Being a friend of yours,” said Waring, “nacherally you want him out of hock.”

Silver nodded again.

“And the fact is,” said Waring, “that he's been in a good deal of danger.”

“Has he?” said Silver.

“There was a time last night,” said Waring, “when some of the boys wanted to bump him off before he had a chance to get loose and spread the news around about the way they'd been cutting up. If it hadn't been for me talking on his side, something bad would sure ‘a' happened to him.”

“Thanks,” said Silver. “I was behind a rock near the dynamite sack, Waring, when you were interceding for him. I know the kind things you said.”

He looked into the eyes of the fat man, but Waring merely laughed.

“You're a fox, Silver,” said he. “A regular silver fox, is what you are, and it would take a brighter man than poor old Sam Waring to put anything over on you. But, all jokes aside, young Danny Farrel is in a heap of hot trouble.”

“He is,” agreed Silver.

“So doggone much trouble that something had oughta be done about it, and that's why I'm out here to talk to you, Jim!”

“Make your proposition,” said Silver.

“It's this way,” said Waring. “Everybody knows that Silver ain't the sort of a fellow to turn down a friend. Everybody knows that you're the sort who sticks by a partner to the finish. Well, then, this is what we've got in mind: On the one side there's a few cows. On the other side there's a friend. You can make your choice, and I know what choice you'll make.”

“It's this way,” said Silver. “If I agree to let you fellows get away with the cattle, you'll let me have young Danny Farrel — and his girl beside him.”

“Aw, the girl don't count. We throw her in. Sure, you can have her,” said Waring. “You don't think that we'd make trouble for a woman, do you, Jim? Do you think that we're that sort of snake?”

“I think,” said Silver, “that you'd throttle a baby in a cradle if you could make a hundred dollars out of it.”

“Come, come, come!” protested Waring, holding up a fat, soft hand. “You wouldn't wanta talk rough, Jim, would you? The fact is that you and me have to talk business, and it don't help business along to start calling names. You know that, I suppose?”

“I suppose I do,” said Silver. “But I've named the proposition, haven't I?”

“Exactly,” said Waring. “We've got your young friend. A fine, manly, honest kid, Silver. As manly and honest as I ever seen. It would do me good to see a kid like that wearing my name, matter of fact. But, when all's said and done, business is business. How does it sound to you?”

Silver rubbed his toe in the dust. “I could spoil your business for you, Waring,” said he. “I could get to town and gather in plenty of men in a posse to wreck the job for you before your boys will ever be able to gather those cows out of the stampede.”

Waring scowled at him with a sudden loss of his cheerful veneer.

“You've raised hell already,” said he. “You've spilled more'n a thousand dollars of good beef out of the cup already. It's lying dead back there in the valley to feed the buzzards, and that's your work. What put it into your head to use dynamite to start the stampede?”

“They laid the dynamite down in front of me,” said Silver. “You can't expect me to refuse a gift like that, can you?”

Waring stared.

“And then you rode right in through the bunch and got at the cows. Ferris is laid up bad. He's shot inside the shoulder, and he might not pull through.”

“I'm sorry for that,” said Silver, frowning.

Sam Waring answered suddenly: “Why lie about it, Silver? You're glad that you nicked one of the boys. It pleases you the same's it would ‘a' pleased them to put a slug in you. I ain't wrong about that.”