Trigger Fast (4 page)

All in all Dusty seemed far more interested in the closing of the trail than in being thanked for a very necessary piece of work.

‘Lon,’ he said. ‘Reckon you could find Bent’s Ford, happen you was looking for it?’

‘Likely, but I’m not looking.’

‘You are. Just as soon as you’ve thrown a saddle on that white goat out back.’

‘Be late tonight when I get there,’ drawled the Kid.

‘Happen that fool Nigger hoss makes it,’ grinned Mark.

‘Ole Nigger’ll run hide ‘n’ tallow off that brown wreck you ride,’ scoffed the Kid. ‘I’ll make Bent’s tonight all right, only I might find the hard boys have been here and took off with your guns.’

‘I’m here to protect them, Lon,’ Freda put in.

‘Sure, with birdshot in both barrels. Say, reckon you can throw up a bite of food to eat on the way, something I can carry easy.’

She sniffed. ‘I’ll flavour it with birdshot. Just remember that I’ve nothing in the house, except for what’s in your greasy-sack.’

‘Do what you can,’ Dusty suggested. ‘Then Mark and I’ll take you into town and buy supplies.’

‘Mallick won’t let us buy anything on credit,’ Lasalle pointed out.

‘We never said anything about credit.’

An indignant flush came to Lasafle’s cheeks as he caught the meaning of Dusty’s words. He thrust back his chair and came to his feet, facing the small Texan across the table.

‘I can’t accept charity—’

‘And none’s being offered. Man, you’re the touchiest gent I’ve come across in many a year. This’s a loan until Stone Hart arrives and you can sell some stock.’

‘And any way you look at it Dusty and I’m going to eat our fair share of that same food.’

Freda stepped to her father’s side and laid a hand on his sleeve, her fingers biting into the bicep.

‘We accept,’ she said and her voice once more warned her father not to argue. ‘Thank you all for helping.’

‘There’s another thing though,’ Lasalle said, surrendering the field to his daughter. ‘Mallick has told the storekeepers they won’t serve any small ranch folk unless they bring a note from him. He keeps a deputy in each store to make sure the owner obeys.’

‘Well now,’ drawled Mark idly, ‘reckon we could do something about that, don’t you, Dusty?’

While agreeing with his big amigo on the point that they could do something about it, Dusty did not want to make war in Barlock until he had a fighting force at his back. While he and Mark could likely go into town and make Elben’s deputies sing low, they might also have to do it to the tune of roaring guns and that could blow things apart at the seams. Dusty wished to avoid starting hostilities if he possibly could. It was not fear of odds which worried Dusty, odds could be whittled down and hired gunmen did not fight when the going got too stiff. With the Wedge at his elbow Dusty could make the hired hard-cases of Double K think the going had got too stiff, then likely put its new owner where he must make his peace.

Every instinct warned Dusty that more than lust for land lay behind this business. The Lindon Land Grant spread wide and large enough to satisfy a man, especially a man new to the cattle business. The entire area was well watered, that could not be the cause of the trouble. So he must look deeper for the reason and when he found it would best know how to avert trouble.

Dusty wanted to meet the English owner if he could, Mallick certainly, to get the measure of his enemies, if enemies they should be. It might be that both were new to the west and did not know the cattleman’s hatred of barbed wire, or the full implication of Lindon’s Grant. If so, and they listened, he might be able to steer them in the right direction.

‘What do you want me to do at Bent’s, Dusty?’ asked the Kid, breaking in on his pard’s thought train.

‘Leave word for Cousin Red to carry on up trail without us. I don’t want him waiting at Bent’s, or coming back to help us. That herd has to make the market. And don’t spread the word about this wire trouble. I don’t want this section swarming with hot-headed fools all looking for trouble.’

‘They’d likely be down here and rip down that fence,’ drawled the Kid. Which same could sure show the Double K bunch how folks feel.’

‘And might start lead flying.’ Dusty answered.

He looked beyond the mere basic events. If Keller or Mallick aimed to keep the fence they had trained fighting men to help them. No matter what public opinion might think about the fences Keller had the law behind him in his right to erect one.

Before any more could be said Freda came in and announced she had food ready for the Kid’s departure. So setting his black Stetson at the right ‘jack-deuce’ angle over his off eye, the Kid headed out back to saddle his white stallion.

The girl followed him and watched the big white horse come to his whistle. She had the westerner’s love of a good horse and that seventeen hand white stallion sure was a fine animal.

‘Isn’t he a beauty?’ she said, stepping forward. ‘Can I stroke him?’

‘Why sure,’ grinned the Kid, ‘happen you don’t want to keep both hands. See, ole Nigger here’s mammy done got scared with a snapping turtle just afore he was born and he don’t know whether he’s hoss or alligator.’

Freda studied the horse and decided that, despite the light way he spoke, the Kid called it right when he told of the dangerous nature of his horse. That seventeen-hand white devil looked as wild and mean as its master. So she refrained from either touching or approaching the horse. This was a real smart move for Nigger would accept the touch of few people; in fact only the Kid could handle his horse with impunity, it merely tolerated the other members of the floating outfit when circumstances forced them to handle it.

With his horse saddled ready to ride the Kid went astride in a lithe, Indian-like bound. He looked down at Freda and grinned, the grin made him look very young and innocent again. Removing his hat he gave her an elaborately graceful flourish with it, then replaced it.

‘You get some buckshot in that gun, gal,’ he said, ‘and afore I get back here.
Birdshot
, huh!’

Before she could think up a suitable reply he turned the horse, rode around the side of the building, through the water and up the slope. He turned, waved a cheery hand, then went from sight.

Only then did she realize that he had not asked for directions to Bent’s Ford. A momentary suspicion came to her for Dusty claimed they had never travelled this way before. Then the thought left her and she felt just a little ashamed of herself at having it. The Ysabel Kid needed no spoken directions to help him find his way across country. Out there, although the first drive of the year had not yet passed, he would find enough sign to aim him north and all the trails converged at Bent’s Ford in the Indian Nations.

‘Lon gone?’ Dusty asked, coming to the front door as the girl returned to the house.

‘No. He’s sat on the roof, playing a guitar.’

Somehow Freda felt in a mad gay mood, far happier than she had done for a long time. She gave a guilty start, realizing it must be the excitement of the day and the pleasure at having company which made her act in such a manner.

CHAPTER FOUR

‘ABOUT these supplies?’ Mark Counter asked as Dusty and Freda entered the room from seeing the Kid on his way to Bent’s Ford.

‘I’ve told, Mark,’ Lasalle replied. ‘Mallick won’t let us buy any unless we sell out to him.’

‘Looks like we’ll just have to go in and see Mr. Mallick,’ drawled Dusty.

‘Poor Mallick,’ Freda remarked, the gay mood still on her.

Her father watched her and for the first time realized how lonely she must be out here miles from town. He wondered if they might be better to take Mallick’s offer, leave the ranch and make a fresh home in a town where she could have friends of her own age.

Then he thought of the strength Mallick had in Barlock. With Elben, the town marshal, backed by eight gun-wise hard-case deputies, Dusty and Mark would be hopelessly outnumbered. They stood a better than fair chance of leaving town headed in a pinewood box for the boothill.

‘It’s risky—’ he began.

‘Could be, happen we rode on in and started to shoot up the main drag,’ Dusty agreed. ‘Only we don’t aim to. We’ll just ride on in peaceable and ask him to act a mite more sociable and neighbourly.’

‘And if he doesn’t want to act more sociable and neighbourly?’ Freda asked.

‘Don’t reckon there’s much we can do at all,’ drawled Mark, sounding mild but there was no mildness in his eyes.

‘ ‘Cepting maybe try moral suasion,’ Dusty went on, just as mild sounding.

‘Ole Dusty’s real good at that, too,’ Mark said. ‘Yep. I can’t think of a better moral sunder than him. Excepting maybe his — Uncle Devil and his cousin Betty.’

‘And what if Mallick doesn’t fall for this moral suasion — whatever that might be?’

‘Tell you, gal,’ Mark answered. We’ll likely hide behind you.’ They left it at that, although Freda wondered what moral suasion might be. Her father was smiling now, looking more confident in himself all the time, more like the man she always remembered. Freda saw for the first time the strain he had been under for the past few years since her mother died. Now he looked better, ready to take on the world and its problems.

‘Where at’s your hosses, gal?’ Mark asked, taking up his hat.

‘Out back, grazing, I’ll show you.’

‘I’ve seen a couple of hosses afore, gal, can likely tell them from a cow, happen the cow’s not a muley. I’ll hitch a hoss to your buggy for you.’

Freda smiled. ‘I’ll come along, there’s a muley cow or two out back and I wouldn’t want to drive into town behind it.’

‘Pick a couple of saddle horses out for us, Mark,’ Dusty put in. ‘No sense in going in there shouting who we are.’

‘Yo!’

With the old cavalry reply Mark turned and left the room with Freda on his heels. Lasalle watched her go, then turned to Dusty with a worried look in his eyes.

‘I’ve never seen Freda act that way,’ he said. ‘It’s — well—.’

‘Yeah, I know,’ grinned Dusty. ‘I’ve seen girls get that way around Mark afore. Don’t worry, it won’t get serious and you can trust Mark.’ He nodded to the old Le Mat carbine on the wall. ‘Does that relic work?’

Indignant at the slur on his prized Le Mat, Lasalle forgot his daughter’s infatuation for Mark Counter and headed to the wall. He lifted down the Le Mat and walked to the table.

‘Work!’ he snorted. ‘I’ll say it works. And I’ll show Tring just how well if he comes back today.’

Dusty grinned. ‘Way him and his bunch took off,’ he drawled, ‘they were toting birdshot and they won’t feel like riding anyplace today.’

With that he took up the young gunhand’s discarded Army Colt. He turned the weapon in his hands, checking its chamber was full loaded and that the weapon worked. It had some dirt in it, but the Colt 1860 Army revolver was a sturdy weapon and took more than a bit of dirt to put it out of working condition. He rubbed the dirt off the revolver, set the hammer at half cock and turned the chamber, making sure it would rotate properly.

‘Here, let me handle that,’ Lasalle said. ‘You said the Kid used the shotgun on Double K?’

‘Both barrels and a good ounce of birdshot, way they took to hollering when it sprayed out,’ Dusty answered. ‘So shove in some powder and pour a load of buckshot on top this time. It doesn’t fan out but it’s a mite more potent close up.’

Outside Mark caught the best two of the ranch’s small bunch of saddle stock and led them back to the house. He slung his saddle blanket on one horse, then the double girthed range rig while Freda watched. He felt her eyes on him and hoped she wasn’t going to get too involved in romance that could have no successful end.

Mark did not mind a mild flirtation but he made a rule never to become involved with a sweet, innocent and naive girl like Freda. In his travellings around the west he had seen, and known intimately, a number of women who were either famous already, or would be one day. They were all mature women who knew what time of day it was and knew better than to expect anything permanent to come of romance with a man like him.

For all his worries Mark did the girl less than justice. Freda did not think of herself as being halfway towards marrying him. Some woman’s instinct warned her it would be no use falling in love with a man like Mark. Yet she wanted to be near him, to see how he walked and talked, so that she might know the feeling again if it came with a more marriageable man’s presence.

She pointed out the harness horse and helped Mark hitch it to the small buckboard wagon. Then they walked back to the house to find her father sitting at the sitting-room table with a formidable collection of weapons before him.

‘We’re ready to go, Dusty,’ she said.

‘Reckon you can hold down the house while we’re gone, George?’ Dusty asked her father.

‘Can I?’ growled Lasalle. ‘I reckon with old Bugle here to give warning and all this artillery I just might be able to.’

‘Keep the shotgun handy then. It’s got buckshot down the barrels — I saw to that.’

Freda poked her tongue out at Dusty and headed for the door. He grinned, took up his hat and followed her out. Lasalle came to the kitchen door, the La Mat carbine resting on his arm and the Army Colt thrust into his waistband. Freda could see the change in her father now. He looked almost as young and happy as he had on his leaves during the war, before being taken prisoner and sent to a Yankee hell-hole prisoner-of-war camp.

At first Freda kept up a light-hearted flow of banter with the two men as they rode by her on borrowed horses. They kept to the wheel-rut track the buckboard carved into the ground on many trips to Barlock, travelling across good range country with water, grass and a good few head of long-horn cattle grazing in sight of them. Freda saw the way Dusty and Mark watched the range, studying it with keen and careful eyes, watching for some sign of approaching danger, even while they laughed and joked with her.

Not until they were halfway to town did Freda mention the trouble.

‘Why did you stay on to help us, Dusty?’ she asked.

‘It could be because I like you folks and don’t take to Double K shoving you around,’ he replied.

‘It wouldn’t be because of that fence, too?’

‘That’s part of it,’ Dusty agreed. ‘The range has always been open and I’d hate to see it fenced. There’s no need. A man’s cattle can roam, feed anywhere the graze is good and not cut the grass down to its roots because they’re hemmed in by a fence. Down home in the Rio Hondo our round-ups take a month and cover maybe three hundred square miles. We work with the other outfits, share the profits, take our cut. Any stock from out of our area is held until it’s spread’s rep. comes for it and we send men to collect ours.’

‘The fence blocks a cattle trail, Freda,’ Mark went on soberly. ‘Which makes it a whole lot worse. You didn’t see Texas right after the war. Not the way I saw it when I came through with Bushrod Sheldon on our way to join Maximillian. There were cattle every place a man looked and no market for them. Then we found a market up north and men started to move their herds up towards Kansas. It was the trail herd which saw this area opened up, the Indian moved on out. Men died on those early drives, more than do these days. They were learning the lessons we know now and a lot of times a man didn’t get a chance to profit from a mistake. A code grew up, gal. The code of the trail boss, the way he and his crew lived on the trail. One thing no trail boss will do is risk losing his herd and that’s what it’d mean to push ‘round here.’

The girl watched Mark, surprised at the sincere and sober way he spoke. She began to get an inkling of the way the cowhands felt about that fence across the narrows of the Double K.

‘You know how Lindon got that Land Grant?’ Mark went on.

‘I’m not sure,’ she admitted.

‘On the agreement that he kept the trail open, never closed it down. That was why he got the narrows, it’s good winter graze and it lets the herd run through good food without being on his main grant land too long. Now the trail’s closed there can only be the one answer — war.’

Would it come to that?’

‘Likely,’ Dusty answered. ‘Stone Hart’s coming north, be along most any day now. He’s a good man — and a damned good trail boss. He won’t waste time going all that way around when he’s got clear right to cross. So Wedge’ll fight, and if he can’t force through the men following him north’ll fight. Most of that fighting’ll be done over your land, not on the Double K. At the end, no matter who gets their way, no matter who wins, you small folks lose out.’

‘How do you mean?’

‘You make a living here, not much more. You need to sell your stock to make enough to carry you through,’ Dusty explained. ‘There’ll be none of that. And once the shooting starts you’ll be in the middle, stock’ll go, maybe folks be killed. You’ll be the ones who go under and that’s what I’m trying to prevent. That’s why I’m waiting for the Wedge to come.’

‘But would your friend allow that to happen?’

‘Stone makes his living running contract herds for small ranch owners like your pappy. He’ll have around three thousand head along with him, six or eight spreads shipping herds. Those folks are relying on Stone, just as you are on selling your stock. He never yet let his folks down and I don’t figure he aims to make a start at it now.’

‘Won’t there be trouble when he comes anyway?’ she asked, watching Dusty’s face and wondering how she ever thought of him as being small.

‘Maybe,’ replied Dusty. ‘Maybe not. Only I’ve never yet seen the hired gun who would face real opposition and we’ll have that behind us with the Wedge. If we can get through, talk this out with Keller, or whatever you called him, we might show him how wrong he is.’

‘Never knowed a gal like you for asking questions,’ Mark drawled in a tone which warned her the subject must be dropped.

‘And I’d bet you’ve known some girls,’ she answered.

‘Couple here, couple there.’

‘When did you first get interested in girls, Mark?’

He grinned at her. ‘The day I found out they wasn’t boys.’

Once more the conversation took on a lighter note and continued that way until they came towards the town of Barlock, buckboard and horses making for the main street.

Barlock was neither large nor impressive. Like most towns in Texas it existed to supply the needs of the cattle industry, growing, like the State itself, out of hide and horn, beef fattened on the rolling range land. The surrounding ranches supplied year-long custom for the cowhands had no closer place in which to spend their monthly pay roll. During the trail drive season added wealth could be garnered from passing herds, their crews taking a chance of a quick celebration before leaving Texas.

All this did not mean that Barlock grew larger than any other weather-washed township out on the rolling plains. There were some fifteen business premises, two stores, two saloons, the inevitable Wells Fargo office with its telegraph wires and its barns and stables, a livery barn, a small house in back of town which showed its purpose with a small, discreet, red lantern. The rest were just like any other small town might offer, being neither more nor less grand.

Mark and Dusty now rode at one side of the wagon and the girl was surprised to see how they no longer kept protectively close to it. They passed into town, going by a blacksmith’s forge, then the barber’s shop.

‘That’s the Land Office,’ she said, indicating the next single floor, small wooden building.

‘Saloon, ma’am,’ Dusty replied in a louder tone than necessary. Why thank you kindly for pointing it out.’

On the porch before the Land Office lounged two tough-looking men with prominent guns and deputy marshal badges. They appeared to be loafing, yet clearly stood guard to prevent anybody entering and bothering whatever might be in the office. Neither spoke, nor did they move, but studied the passing party with cold, hard, unfriendly eyes.

‘Thanks for showing us the way in ma’am,’ Mark went on, also speaking in a far louder tone than necessary. ‘Let’s find us a drink,
amigo
.’

‘Been eating trail dust for so long I need one,’ Dusty replied, then in a lower voice, for they had passed the Land Agent’s office. ‘Where at’s the jail gal. Tell, don’t point.’

Freda’s finger had started to make an instinctive point but she held it down and answered, ‘At the other end of town, beyond the Jackieboy Saloon.’

‘We’re going in this place here,’ Dusty said. Wait out here for us. What’s in that shop opposite?’

‘Dresses.’

‘Couldn’t be better. See you soon.’

They swung their horses from her side and rode to the hitching rail outside the smaller of Barlock’s saloons. Freda swung her own horse towards the other side of the street and jumped down. She crossed to the window of the dress shop and stood looking in the window, admiring a dress which would cost more than she could possibly afford.

Time dragged slowly. She wondered what might be keeping Dusty and Mark for there was no sign of either man. How soon would one of Elben’s deputies get suspicious and come to ask her why she waited before the saloon? For five minutes she pretended to be examining the horse’s hooves and the set of its harness, then leaned by the side of the wagon looking along the street.

The tall shape of Mark Counter loomed at the batwing doors. Freda heaved a sigh of relief. Then her smile of welcome died on her face as she watched the way her two friends came into sight.

For a moment Mark and Dusty stood on the sidewalk before the saloon. Then they started to walk towards the Land Agent’s office without showing a sign that either of them had ever seen her before. Their hats were thrust back and they went on unsteady legs in a manner she knew all too well. They seemed to have spent their time in the saloon gathering a fair quantity of liquid refreshment. In fact they both looked to be well on their way to rolling drunk.

Hot and angry Freda stamped her way across the street on to the sidewalk behind them. She aimed to give them a piece of her mind when she caught up with them and to hell with the consequences. They had come into town to help her and the moment they hit the main street they took off for the saloon to become a pair of drunken irresponsible cowhands. She would never have expected it of either of them, yet the evidence stood plain before her eyes.

‘Yippee ti-yi-ki-yo!’ Dusty whooped, sounding real drunk. ‘Ain’t no Yankee can throw me.’

‘Le’s find another saloon ‘n’ likker up good,’ suggested Mark Counter, making a grab at the hitching rail on the end of the Land Agent’s office and holding it to get his balance, allowing Dusty to go ahead. ‘Another lil drink sure won’t do us any harm.’

From his tone and attitude he already carried enough bottled brave-maker in him to settle him down. Freda came forward, her cheeks burned hot with both shame and rage. She saw the two deputies looking towards her friends and felt the anger grow even more. Dusty and Mark were headed for trouble, she hoped they got it.

‘They sure didn’t waste any time,’ said one deputy.

‘Never knowed a cowhand who did,’ replied the other. ‘Nor could handle his likker once he took it.’

‘That big feller looks like he might have money. Let’s tell them we’ll jail ‘em unless they pay out a fine.’

‘Sure. They’ll be easy enough.’

Dusty Fog looked owlishly towards the two men who blocked the sidewalk ahead of him.

‘Ain’t no Yankee can throw me!’ he stated again, belligerently. ‘You pair’s headed for jail,’ answered the taller deputy. ‘Come on quiet, or we’ll take you with a broke head.’

‘Jail!’ yelped Dusty, fumbling in his pants pocket. ‘You can’t do that to us. I got money — look.’

He held out a twenty dollar gold piece before the men. Two hands shot out greedily towards the gold coin, both deputies eager to get hold of it. By an accident it seemed Dusty let the gold piece fall from his fingers. It rang on the sidewalk and both deputies bent forward, reaching down to grab it.

Dusty’s hands shot out fast, closed on the bending deputies’ shirt collars and heaved. They shot by on either side of him, caught off balance and taken unprepared by the strength in the small Texan’s body.

Out of control, the two men went forward into Mark’s waiting hands which clamped on the outside of each head. Mark brought his hands together, crashing two heads into each other with a most satisfying thud. Both deputies went limp as if they’d been suddenly boned. They would have fallen to the ground only Mark gripped their collars again and held them up, leaning them against the office wall and jamming them there as if standing talking to them.

Turning fast, hands ready to grab at the butts of his Colts, Dusty looked along the street. Nobody appeared to have seen them for the street remained empty except for the girl. A girl whose face seemed to be twisting into a variety of different expressions. Relief, amazement, anger, amusement, they all warred for prominence on Freda’s face.

Then Dusty was grinning, not the slobbering leering grin of a drunk, but the grin she had seen before, when he talked with her before leaving for Barlok.

‘Lordy me, gal,’ he said, taking her arm and leading her to the Land Agent’s door. ‘I’ll never forget your face when we came out of that saloon.’