Way of the Gun (9781101597804) (15 page)

Returning to the woodpile after dinner, Carson commented to his work partner, “Looks to me like we're gonna have to work like hell if we're gonna split all this wood by suppertime.”

“Yeah,” Shorty replied somewhat contritely. “Sometimes my mouth is bigger than Pruett's. I reckon we'll get done what we can, and I'll have to hear him bray like a donkey about it.”

Carson picked up an ax, tested the weight, and said, “Why don't we split every damn piece of this wood, and you can bray like a donkey?”

Shorty grinned. “Now, that'd be somethin', wouldn't it? Shut his big mouth then.”

So they waded into the huge mountain of sawed lengths, both men with axes swinging at a steady pace, with no pauses between lengths, with no sound other than that of a soft grunt as the ax came down on the round section of tree trunk, followed by the splitting sound of the wood. A stack of stove-ready firewood soon began to pile up between the two men, who now seemed to be caught up in the accomplishment of their goal. Very few words passed between them, only a determined smile now and then as the pile grew to waist high. Before long, they could no longer see each other when the pile became higher than Shorty's head, but the steady blow of ax blade against wood never stopped until a sharp crack signaled a broken ax handle. “I'll be right back!” Shorty exclaimed, and ran to the barn to get another ax, knowing that would be quicker than taking the time to put a new handle in the one he had just busted. “I'll fix that handle later,” he announced when he returned to the woodpile.

Sheer determination kept the two men at it throughout the afternoon, and as the pile of lengths waiting to be split steadily diminished, their will seemed to gain strength. By this time, most of the others in the house and around the barn were aware of the attempt to claim the woodcutting title of the M/C. The contest drew spectators to stop and gawk from time to time, most of them calling out encouragement. The two participants seemed to pay them no mind. They just kept chopping.

“He sure knows how to swing that ax, doesn't he?” Lucas said.

Millie jumped, startled when he came up behind her as she was standing looking out the kitchen door. Recovering quickly, she responded, “Huh, anybody can chop wood. Men,” she scoffed, “have to make a game out of everything, even chores.” She spun on her heel and left him standing there.

When Lizzie called Lucas from the kitchen door to come carry supper down to the bunkhouse, he reluctantly left to do her bidding, for the two woodcutters were down to only a few lengths left to split. For the two men, it only caused them to work harder, for Shorty's boast had been that they would finish it all by suppertime. Lucas seemed to sense the significance of that. Whether or not this was the reason he tarried a little on delivering the food to the bunkhouse, no one could say. They were down to one length by the time Lucas set the pots on the table and signaled the men. Carson and Shorty both attacked the last one with a triumphant vengeance. They threw their axes aside then and shook hands, both men drenched with sweat. Shorty looked down at the blood on his hand after they shook, and knew the price Carson had paid to back him up.

It was a triumphant entrance that Shorty made in the bunkhouse, amid the cheering of his fellow cowhands. In a fitting response, he paused in the doorway to take a deep bow. Then going straight to Pruett, he held out his hand. “Five dollars, I believe we agreed on.”

Flushed with embarrassment, Pruett responded irritably, “You're gonna have to wait till payday. I ain't got five dollars.”

His response couldn't have pleased Shorty more. He gave the big man a stern look and said, “I'll wait, but let this be a lesson to you, don't go makin' bets you can't back up.”

“You go to hell, Shorty,” Pruett replied, much to the amusement of the other men.

Shorty threw his head back and laughed delightedly. “Hell, let's eat,” he exclaimed. “Come on, partner, set yourself down by me.”

Carson, who had silently watched Shorty's moment of triumph from the corner of the room, sat down beside him. He enjoyed some measure of pleasure from the victory won that day, but it was not without a price. His hands were blistered and bleeding, and the muscles in his arms and back were stiffening up. Still, it was worth it to see Shorty collect on the bet.

An interested spectator, Justin Cain had entered the bunkhouse in time to catch Shorty's entrance. It appeared that his new hire was not afraid of physical labor, and it looked as if he had made a fast friend of Shorty. Justin decided to send Shorty out to ride the boundary lines with Carson in the morning. He told them as much at the supper table. He had talked to Frank and Nancy about the quiet young man who had accompanied them from Dakota Territory, and there was little doubt that they thought he was something special.
Well, I can use a man who's something special,
he thought.
If he can use a rifle like they say, he might come in handy right now
. He had not even talked to his father about it yet, but when he and Pruett and Clem found those strays in that ravine near the mountains the day before, it almost looked as if someone had herded them into that narrow pocket. Clem had commented that it sure looked like a strange place for cattle to gather. There was nothing to attract them, no grass, no water. He remembered Pruett's remark as well. “You talk like cows have got sense,” he had said. “You can't depend on a damn cow to do anythin' on its own.” But Justin wasn't ready to rule out the possibility that someone had driven those cattle up to the head of that ravine, figuring on changing the brands. Maybe he was just being overly suspicious, but he had come up a little short on the head count lately, and he wasn't at all confident in Lon Tuttle's integrity. Lon, the owner of the Bar-T range, had hired a rough-looking bunch of drifters to work his cattle. His herd was much smaller than Mathew Cain's, and Justin wouldn't put it past ol' Lon to increase his stock with a branding iron. After supper was over, he told Shorty what was on his mind. “I can't send all the boys up there to look around, so I want you and John to take a good look along the river. Drive any of our strays back where they belong, and keep an eye out for any of Lon Tuttle's men on this side of the river.”

* * *

Carson and Shorty rode out to the north before breakfast the next morning, planning to cover a little ground before stopping to rest the horses and boil some coffee to drink with the jerky they carried. Shorty gave John a running commentary of the bunchgrass prairie and boasted that it was better than the grass in the lower territories when it came to putting hard weight on cattle. “Them mountains yonder,” he said, pointing to the west, “them's the Crazy Mountains. The Injuns called them that because the wind gets to blowin' around those sharp peaks and narrow valleys, and it moans like they was crazy.” Carson gazed long and hard at the rugged peaks, already feeling a desire to ride up into them, just to see what was up there. Shorty told him of Justin's concerns about the possibility that they were losing some cattle to the Bar-T. “Our home range runs up to the Musselshell River. That's about twenty miles from here. Lon Tuttle's Bar-T grazes north of the river.”

“You think Tuttle's men are rustlin' M/C cattle?” Carson asked. “I thought the Bar-T and another ranch east of here all worked together on the roundup.”

“They do,” Shorty said, “but Tuttle has been hirin' on some pretty scruffy-lookin' hands lately. I ran into a couple of 'em last month on the south bank of the Musselshell, and they looked more like gunmen to me.” He rode on a few minutes before adding, “Justin just wants us to take notice of any cows we see that are sportin' sores that ain't healin' too fast.” He didn't have to explain; Carson had seen old brands that had been worked over to look like healing injuries, usually close to a freshly applied brand.

After a ride of about ten miles, they stopped by a tiny stream that came down out of the Crazy Mountains to have their breakfast of coffee and beef jerky. The dry spell the ranchers had endured during the last few weeks had dried the little stream considerably, causing Shorty to joke, “Damn, looks like there ain't gonna be none left if I fill this coffeepot.” There was enough moving water for the horses to drink, however. Breakfast was a brief stop, and soon they were on their way again, arriving at the banks of the Musselshell around midday.

There was a small group of cows standing in the shallow water close to the bank when they came up, so Shorty rode into the river to check the brands. “All these cows are wearin' M slash C brands,” he called back to Carson. “I'll keep 'em bunched here, and we can push 'em back on our range after we see if there's any more by the river. Why don't you take a little ride down around that bend? There might be more down that way.”

Carson acknowledged with a wave of his hand, and turned the bay gelding to the east. He knew the cows would not likely cross the river over to the Bar-T range if left alone, so there was no harm in leaving them there until roundup as long as there was no rustling going on. And because the brands on these six strays had not been tampered with, it was apparent that Mr. Cain's cattle were all right. He had continued along the river for the better part of a mile when he spotted a dozen cows on the opposite bank, the beginning of Lon Tuttle's Bar-T range, according to Shorty. Carson turned to look back the way he had come, but the bend in the river blocked his view of Shorty. To satisfy his curiosity, he decided to cross over to the other side to take a look at the cows.

The first thing that captured his attention as he rode up the opposite bank was the almost uniform epidemic of black spot disease that had evidently afflicted the cows. It was a blatant alteration of the brand, especially this close to roundup. Given a little more time, the mutilated M/C brand might have looked more like an old sore, and the freshness of the Bar-T brand might have faded. When the stolen cattle were scattered among the thousands rounded up, it was hoped, they would be too few to notice.

Carson decided the best thing to do was to drive the cattle all the way back to range headquarters to make sure they ended up where they belonged. He rode around behind them and started driving them down the bank. They were reluctant to cross over, even though it was shallow enough at this point for them to ford without getting in over their heads. It took a while before he pushed a couple of lead steers to find shallower footing on the south side, but it was easier then to get the others to follow. At last, all twelve cows were back on the proper bank of the river, and Carson started them back toward Shorty.

* * *

While Carson was busy trying to get a dozen reluctant cows across the river, Shorty had visitors in the form of four riders who suddenly came up behind him from the north side of the river. There was a thick bank of bushes growing between the cottonwood trees that hid the riders until they appeared on the bank. They paused for a few moments while they and Shorty silently eyed each other. Then after a few muttered words between them, the four riders filed down the bank and crossed over to the M/C side of the river.

Shorty watched cautiously as they rode up to confront him. First glance told him that these were not ordinary cowpunchers. They looked as rough as the men he had seen a month back, but they were different men. He was sure of that. Extremely uncomfortable with the position he found himself in, he nevertheless greeted them boldly. “What brings you fellers down this way?”

One of them, a menacing-looking man with dark black hair hanging shoulder length from under a wide-brim Montana Peak hat to fall on the shoulders of a buckskin coat, answered Shorty with a question. “Who the hell are you?”

Rankled a bit by the curt demand, Shorty replied, “I work for Mr. Mathew Cain and the M/C Ranch, whose range I'm settin' on right now.” He nodded toward the water behind them. “That river you just crossed is the line between the M/C and the Bar-T. You fellers work for the Bar-T?”

“Yeah,” the stranger replied. “We work for the Bar-T. We're lookin' for some of Mr. Tuttle's stock that's strayed over the river.”

“I ain't seen none of his cows on this side,” Shorty said, “but if there is, you'll get 'em back after roundup.”

“I expect we'll get 'em when we wanna get 'em,” one of the other men said. He and the other two moved their horses to form a semicircle facing Shorty.

Shorty had a pretty good idea what was coming next, and he backed away a few steps, shifting his eyes back and forth over the grinning faces of the men confronting him. “I reckon it's my job to see don't none of Mr. Cain's stock gets took,” he said, and took another step backward.

“That's a pretty damn big job for one man all by his lonesome,” Black Hair said with a sneer.

“He ain't all by himself.” The voice came from the brush between the cottonwoods behind them. “He's got me and this Winchester lookin' at your backs.” He cocked it to emphasize his meaning. All four jumped when they heard it, hands falling onto their gun handles. “First one draws one of those guns is the first one gets shot,” Carson warned.

“Hold on!” Black Hair blurted. “There ain't no use in goin' off half-cocked. Ain't nobody done nobody no harm.”

“I expect the best thing for you men to do is to get the hell off M/C range and stay off,” Carson said, moving out of the trees, his Winchester still trained on the backs of the four men. “If I find any more M/C cattle with those damn round sores on 'em, I'm gonna cut out two Bar-T cows for every one I find. Now get on back across the river where you belong.”

“All right, we're goin'.” The four rustlers turned their horses back toward the water as Carson came out in the open. Both men stopped, stunned when they were suddenly face-to-face. “Carson Ryan!” Duke Slayton blurted when he found his voice.