The Overlanders (10 page)

All of this Ed Stamper had previously suspected, sure of it when Farraday had filed on that best piece of Crotton’s vast unpatented range. He had seen it coming and now it was here. Farraday had learned Crotton’s lessons well. Swallowfork had sown the crop of fury about to be reaped and if Crotton was to die of it he would be getting no more than his just deserts; but, damnably, innocent men must die, for it was ever that way in a contest of strength. Others would be sucked into this feud, men on the fringes, other ranchers and squatters over whom King Crotton had ridden roughshod on his climb to empire, masterless men whose guns were for hire, the army of saddle tramps who had nothing to take into this fight but hate and who would seize this chance of coming out heeled. The marshal, a Texan, had seen feuds before. The entire region would suffer while a handful of men, made bold by their plunder, were fattening on misery; and who would remember those who fell by the way?

“Be hell on the women an’ livestock,” he said. With his tone going rougher he mentioned the rest of it, the broken homes and the heartbreak, the men with families who would be pulled into it, those with old grudges, the dispossessed — “but I expect you’re countin’ on them.”

Grete stayed silent, his face stony set, his look hard as agate. Stamper sighed. “Well, so be it.” He pulled his horse around and then swung back with his own gusty temper. “Just remember this, Farraday, when the widows an’ kids is plantin’ the dead ones. Their blood will be on your hands. You won’t ever get it off.”

He saw that he was wasting his breath but he said: “There’s one other thing, this woman you’ve tied into this — what does she stand to get out of it? You’re usin’ her crew and her horses. What’ll she —”

He broke off, skreaking around in the saddle to see Ben spurring up on the black, the girl following. Ben skidded the horse to a stop on its haunches. “That fellow,” he cried, flinging a hand square at Grete, “killed a man and I saw it — shot him down like a dog!”

Stamper’s eyes fastened on Grete, moved narrowly back at his accuser. “What man?”

Ben’s stare brightened with malice. “I think they called him French —”

“He was a dog,” Stamper said, and departed.

They pulled out in the night and made a number of miles before going into camp under a grove of live oak where the dark was so thick a man could pretty near cut it. “No fire,” Grete said, “and no smoking till sunup. Two men on guard. If you see anything moving, knock it down.”

The kid said thinly, “Is this Injun country?”

“Still a few bucks prowling through these hills.”

But it wasn’t Apaches Grete had on his mind. This was Swallowfork, and Crotton’s crew wasn’t likely to waste many words with outsiders.

Farraday had been hard to get along with ever since the marshal’s visit and even after he’d rolled into his blankets his black thoughts stayed bitterly with him. Ben had been walking pretty soft since his rebuff from Ed Stamper, but he was one who had to be watched and that cross-grained wooden-legged cook was another.

While the marshal was with him Patch had gone into town after the supplies Grete had sanctioned and an hour and ten minutes later, riding in to see what was keeping him, Farraday discovered cook hadn’t been to the store. He’d spent another twenty minutes picking up the deserter’s trail and the rest of that day catching up with the fellow and fetching him back. Grete knew the man would put a knife in him if he ever got the chance. And there was Rip and his broken bottle and Frijoles who looked to Ben for instruction. And any time now he might be up against Idaho. A hell of a prospect to go into a fight with.

They were up at first daylight, wolfing down Patch’s chuck. Salt pork and whistleberries downed with java so black it left a stain on the cups. They were moving by six, and by eight half the mares were sore-footed and limping. Nothing to be done but cut the pace down to a snail’s crawl.

Tempers turned ugly and at ten, in higher country, going into a loop to approach Texas Canyon, Sary dropped back to where Grete and Rip were eating dust in the drag. “Are you trying to avoid me?” she asked, crowding her horse in alongside Grete’s dun.

He pushed on a few strides, dragging his rope and not answering. “Because if you are,” she said with eyes glinting, “I don’t like it. We’re equal partners in this. I want to know where we’re going. I want to know what your plans are.”

“Is that all?” he said bleakly.

“How much farther to your place is it?”

“If these mares hadn’t gone lame we’d be there tonight — barring accidents.”

She looked at him sharply. “What kind of accidents?”

Grete shrugged. “Crotton’s got a tough crew and we’re on his range.” He remembered Rip then and raked a willful look at him. “Get up ahead,” he growled.

Sary’s tone was insistent. “Isn’t Crotton the one you used to be boss for?” When he nodded she said, “Did we have to come this way?”

“No. We could have spent three days swinging around to come in from the west. Wouldn’t have made any difference with him; we’d have still been on Swallowfork.”

She looked at him grimly. “Our ranch is completely surrounded by Swallowfork?”

The conversation annoyed him. It showed and he was aware that it showed. “That’s right,” he said, and looked past her, eyes narrowing. He reined his horse out around her and, putting steel to its flanks, tore off at a run toward where, ahead of the drive, a couple of strangers had appeared, accosting Idaho. The gunfighter’s lifted arm stopped the drive. Sary spurred after Grete, coming up with the group just as Ben pushed up on his black from where he had been riding swing. The newcomers turned wind-roughened faces, lifting scowling eyes, their attention at once twisting back to Grete. Beard-stubbled and brush-clawed they looked, Sary thought, like a pair of starved saddle tramps. Even their animals had this pinched, gaunted look.

“Alls I’m askin’,” the nearer, taller one growled, “is your intentions. You’ve rounded up a crew an’ you’ve got this jag of horses. Looks to me like you’re fixin’ to make a fight for that claim.”

The other stranger nodded. This was a weedy slack-jawed man whose furtive eyes, a kind of washed-out gray, seemed unable to focus very long on anything. He rasped the jowls of his weak wrinkled face, bobbing his head again. “We’re all out of pocket to that sonofabitch — don’t be so damn standoffish. Hell, it’s all over town that you’re back to —”

“Lally,” Farraday said, “turn that bonerack around and start making tracks.”

Lally’s saddlemate said, “We’ve all got reasons whether you like ‘em or not. Seems to me the best deal is for all of us to put our guns in one pile. No sense in bein’ pigheaded. There’s enough short-enders hidin’ out in the brush —”

“I don’t want your damned help! Now wheel that bronc and get out of here.”

Sary, watching, saw a tide of ruddy color surge above the tall man’s open-throated collar. “What —” Ben began, and was cut off by Farraday’s snapped “Keep out of this!” Lally licked cracked lips in an excess of nervousness as Grete crowded the dun against the tall man’s trembling animal. “I won’t tell you again, Frobisher.”

The tall man’s eyes sought out and found every one of them in slow and careful scrutiny before he yanked his horse around. But this was not enough. Spleen twisted his malicious face and he yelled back across a shoulder, “You’ve had your chance — don’t come cryin’ around me when you git hurt!”

Sary watched them whip their bony mounts through the brush, dip into the wash, and clout away out of sight. Farraday tipped up his face toward the sun and gave Patch the sign that they would stop here for chuck. There were things in his look which confused and halfway frightened her; gnawed by doubt she watched him heavily come out of the saddle. He appeared to be of two minds and not satisfied with either. She watched the black sweep of his glance strike Rip. “Get up on that rim with your rifle!” His eyes found Olds. “Kid, you help cook.”

Idaho was carefully putting together a smoke and she could hear Patch unscrambling the pots from his packs, making more noise than the task would seem to warrant. Barney Olds went into the wash hunting firewood; and she got off her horse, seeing Ben come down too and, beyond Ben, the Mexican’s dark gaze watching Grete. And all of this time her sharpened thoughts kept scratching around the ugly edges of something.

She loosened the cinch, pulling off her mount’s bridle, turning him loose that he might forage like the mares. Her glance, coming up, found Farraday’s eyes. “Go ahead,” he growled, “say it.”

She didn’t care for that look and shook her head at him, searching her mind, wondering if it were fear which held her back instead of foolish hope that after all she might be wrong.

Ben had no such dilemma. Suspicion was written all over him, punching up the sharp angles of a face that was bright with anger. There was no room in him for doubt, and the malice which would not let him alone now prodded him beyond the control of past experience. He saw only that here, delivered into his hands, was the man who at every turn had blocked his purpose.

He stepped toward Grete belligerently, his whole mind vengefully wrapped about the prospect of stripping this dog of all pretensions. It set up a heady excitement in him and a pale flickering of this telegraphed its warning through the clench of his fingers and the whites of his eyes. “So —” he cried, “it’s a fight you been figuring on taking us into!” The lips writhed away from his teeth in a sneer. “The gun who was going to keep trouble away from us! Grete Farraday, the big —” That far he got. Grete’s fist, coming out of the middle of nowhere, crashed into his face like a load of brick, shaking him out of his tracks, unbalancing him. His arms flew out and he went staggering back and his legs couldn’t catch his weight. He went down, wildly yelling.

He rolled, caught himself, and came up off his knees spitting teeth and blood. He looked at the blood and then he pulled his head up. “Man — I’m going to kill you!” he shouted, and launched himself at Farraday head-on, at the last instant catching hold of his gun and bringing the weapon up out of its holster. Grete ducked that swing and laid his weight against Hollis and beat the man across the head. Anger was in the tight scowl of his mouth; he jammed the heel of a palm into Ben’s chin and shoved with all his fury. Hollis, stumbling, got tangled in his spurs and again went down, this time sprawling between the legs of Grete’s horse which promptly let fly with both hind feet.

Ben rolled clear, arms hugged about his head. But he was slower getting up. There was shock in his look and he had lost his pistol. His hat was off and sweat darkly laced the disheveled edges of his hair. He touched tongue to broken lips and, lifting a leg, ripped the spur off its boot and came at Grete, rushing in from that bent-over crouch.

Farraday kicked the man in the shin, bringing a shout from him; and now, before Ben could surge out of his crouch, cracked a knee full into the man’s twisted face. Ben’s arms flew out. He drew one agonized breath and came all the way up to full height, wholly open.

It was Farraday’s chance. But with fist drawn back Grete dropped the arm, stepping away from Ben. Mercy had nothing to do with this. It had no tie-up with the rest of the crew nor had it, directly at least, been inspired by the girl although, discovering the expression of distaste around her mouth, he realized her presence might unconsciously have influenced him. His glance squeezed down until only the full swell of her breasts remained in focus below the white blur of her face. He could not help this. She saw what was in him and he could not help that, either.

He dragged his look away from her, observing Idaho’s rigidity, the yellow-gray shine of his unwinking regard. The others — Rip, Frijoles, and Patch — had no conscience in the matter. They would not have interfered this time; they would have let him kill Ben if that had been his intention.

This conviction narrowed his eyes, disturbing and confusing him; and Sary chose just then to loose some nearly imperceptible signal which, destroying the gunfighter’s cocked readiness, worked through him like an acid, reflected in those small changes which touched his raw-red cheeks. Hollis, to the left of him, stood with all his weight heavily settled into spread legs. He dragged a smearing hand across his chin and, feeling the group’s unspoken indifference, looked, almost blankly, around at them, too mentally spent to exhibit resentment.

Farraday said, “Let’s get those mares moving,” knowing that none of this yet had been settled, that each of these, in his own time if he could, would try to slide out with a few head or try to kill him.

Ben moved first, climbing into his saddle like a man half-asleep. Rip and the Mexican, tightening clinches, also swung up. The kid let go of his armload of wood, started to speak, changed his mind and went along toward the bay he’d left on dropped reins. Patch, swearing now, began to pack up.

All of this Grete saw. He heard Sary coming nearer but did not take his eyes off them even after she stopped until they were gone beyond pistol reach. Then he turned with considerable reluctance. He could not certainly discover her mood and stood stiffly, guard up, waiting.

“Is that true, what Ben said?”

“I told you there’d be trouble.”

“But not that you were inviting it.”

She saw his face tighten up. That unyielding stoniness was back in his look. Her lips, red as wolf’s candle, smiled at him bitterly. “I had you figured right the first time —”

“You made the deal. You had your reasons.”

“And what of that ranch I was supposed to get half of?”

“You’ll get your half when I take it away from him!” He started to wheel, twisted back and said roughly: “You want to call this off?”

She stared, eyes widening, in the stillness of pure astonishment. She took a sudden deep breath and said, “No,” inscrutably.

Farraday searched for tobacco, putting together a smoke, his somber glance making nothing of her expression. His hands grew clumsy and he pitched the thing away. She had a lot of control and this impressed him but his experience with women made him doubt her sincerity. He believed all women to be greatly accomplished at acting out whatever parts seemed most likely to further their desire of the moment. He had expected her to jump at the offer he’d just made.

“A woman,” she said, “can be a realist too. Nothing is ever quite as bad as we think.” After a moment she said, “What did you do to this Crotton?”

Farraday considered that. “Most of what he’s got he took away from other people, a regrettable proportion of it with my help. Of course it’s all public land. All he has is squatter’s rights and so I asked him for a piece of it. When he turned me down I filed on it. When he got around to it he burned me out.”

She studied his face, her own preoccupied, her eyes unfathomably intent, understanding how unlike him it must be to interpret himself to anyone. He was probably unaware of the extent to which his words had unmasked him. He was a forthright man, knowing little of the gentler aspects of living, or had submerged such knowledge in the driving need which he must have for motion. He would view life if he ever took the time to consider it at all, in terms of perpetual struggle; she had seen enough of him to know this, to realize how necessary turmoil had become to him.

She said, “What do you believe?” and saw the puzzled, half-irascible way it pulled his eyes around. “Is it your conviction you have as much right to Swallowfork as Crotton?”

“Not to Swallowfork, maybe, but to a particular piece of it.” He thought about that, abruptly nodding. “Certainly.”

“A brutal philosophy.”

“It’s a brutal land, Sary. You won’t scare off wolves by dropping a handkerchief.”

“If we’ve a right to the land surely the law is bound —”

“This isn’t Texas. Have you any idea how big this county is? It runs from Road Forks, in New Mexico, straight west to the Granite Mountains, hardly a whoop and a holler from the California line. That’s just the width of it — roughiy five hundred miles. Except for Bisbee, Tombstone, Pierce, Willcox, and Ajo, which have marshals, all that country is policed by a sheriff, and the sheriff stays where the votes are — Tucson. There’s your law.”

“But surely there are deputies…”

“Deputy for these parts is Johnny Behan. Johnny’s best friend around here is Curly Bill. Nobody will cry if we don’t make it.”