The Floating Outfit 65, page 3
“You wouldn’t believe Laslo there done swooned away on account of the heat?” asked Gaff.
“Nope.”
“Or how Bratley slipped on a pile of buffler fat?”
“There ain’t no buffalo fat on my floor,” Bo pointed out indignantly.
“Which same, I’m still wanting to know what happened,” Green warned.
“Well, there’s a reasonable explanation someplace,” Gaff said, scratching his head. “Trouble being I’m damned if I can think of it.”
“Why not mark it down to cowhand fooling, Garve?” asked Dusty. “I don’t reckon there’s any real harm done.”
Seeing a chance to escape without loss of face, Brinded nodded. “I’ll go along with that, Cap’n Fog. How about it, Wally?”
Muttering something under his breath, Bratley lurched to his feet. However he knew that none of the others would side him against their boss’ orders and so gave a surly agreement. Swinging on his heel, he walked to where Laslo lay sprawled and groaning back to consciousness. The remainder of the Rafter Bar party gathered around to help raise Laslo and tote him to a table.
“You done whatever you wanted to do, Gaff?” asked Green meaningly.
“Reckon so,” the old timer replied.
“Best get back to the Bradded Box then.”
“How about telling us where you saw that cougar?” Dusty put in.
“I’d sure admire to see one that big,” the Kid agreed.
“Cougar?” Green put in.
“That’s what brought me into town,” Gaff explained. “I’ll tell you about it over a beer.”
“Not here,” Green answered. “Down at the office.”
The marshal felt curious as he made his reply. Since coming to Robertstown, he had seen enough of Gaff to know the old timer was no trouble-causer who would head for town hunting fuss with a rival outfit. Nor was Gaff a booze-hound, sneaking into town when he should be working on the range. The reference to a cougar also aroused the marshal’s interest, for he loved to listen to hounds making their music as they followed a mountain lion’s trail. He could not imagine why a cougar would bring Gaff into town instead of heading to the ranch.
“I reckon we’ll come along,” Dusty put in.
“Was going to ask you,” Green replied, knowing that the continued presence of the two Texans in the saloon might provoke further trouble. Bratley had a vindictive nature and would not soon forget the licking taken at Dusty’s hands; liquor could give him the necessary false-courage to make a play against the Rio Hondo gun wizard.
Buying four bottles of beer, Gaff led the way from the saloon. At the Rafter Bar’s table, Bratley threw a look of hate after the departing Texans and tried to explain his actions to a skeptical Brinded. The rancher declined to discuss the matter and repeated his warning to avoid trouble with the Bradded Box; range wars were ruinous things and Brinded wished to avoid one if possible.
“If the Bradded Box’s hired them two Texans,” Bratley began.
“Which we know it hasn’t,” interrupted Brinded. “You forget Cap’n Fog, Wally. The OD Connected’s one spread I want no part of.”
Giving a low sniff that could mean anything, Bratley resumed his drinking. The fact that Brinded and the remainder of the crew, with the exception of Laslo, settled down to enjoy pay night in the traditional fashion did nothing to lessen Bratley’s desire for revenge.
At the marshal’s office, open beer bottle in his hand, Gaff told his story for the second time. At its end, he took a long pull at the beer and then looked at the other three.
“Well?” he asked.
“Damned if I know,” confessed the marshal. “Happen you’d taken enough likker to make you imagine it, you’d be too drunk to sit a hoss.”
“Which same you was sober when you hit the Silvertip,” the Kid went on with a grin. “Even if you didn’t act it.”
“I don’t usually go ’round breathing into strangers’ faces.”
“That figures,” said the Kid dryly. “Happen you did, you’d never have lived to get all old and ornery. How about it, Dusty, did he dream it up?”
“I don’t know, and that’s for sure,” Dusty replied. “A man can dream some mighty strange things sometimes.” Even as he spoke, Dusty thought back to a dream—or had it been reality—that haunted him, dating from a time when he rode alone down trail from the Kansas railhead to Bent’s Ford in Oklahoma. ii
“It seems a mite hard to believe,” Green commented.
“It’s damned hard to believe,” Gaff corrected. “A cougar knocking down and killing a full-growed cow’s bad enough. But when it hauls the cow off and jumps up a cutbank with the critter on its back—”
Words failed Gaff and he took another pull at his beer. None of the others could offer the old timer any consolation or advice, so he took his departure after finishing the beer.
“I’d sure like to see a cougar that big,” drawled the Kid after Gaff left the office.
“Happen Mark’s not come in before, we’ll take us a look tomorrow,” Dusty answered, for Gaff had given them a good description of where he saw the incident.
“Are you staying around here, Dusty?” Green inquired.
“That depends on how soon Mark arrives. He ought to have beaten us here, but he’s not come.”
“Where’s young Waco and Doc Leroy?” asked Green.
“The boy took lead over to Backsight and Doc stayed on with him. iii Lon and I waited until he was over the worse and then headed back.”
“That’d please Waco,” grinned the marshal, knowing the close ties which held Ole Devil’s floating outfit.
“We couldn’t do anything else and he’ll likely join up with us later,” Dusty answered. “Anyways, if Mark’s not in, we’ll go and take a look for that cougar.”
“If it’s big enough to do what Gaff reckoned,” drawled the Kid. “It shouldn’t be roaming around an itty-bitty county like New Mexico.”
“County—!” yelped Green, pride in his home State plain in his voice. “Anyways, Texas ain’t so big.”
“That depends,” Dusty smiled.
“On what?” demanded Green.
“Whether you count Texas as a country, or just a State. You didn’t sound any too happy to see us, Garve.”
“I’ll tell you the truth, Dusty,” the marshal said frankly. “I’m not.” He looked at the two men and went on in explanation, “I’ve enough troubles without you two being here.”
Chapter Three – I’ve Changed My Mind About You
KNOWING THAT MARSHAL Garve Green had been his father’s friend and also owed the members of the floating outfit something of a debt of gratitude, Dusty felt puzzled at the other’s words. Nothing showed on the Kid’s face, but his attitude clearly indicated that such a statement was what he expected from a lawman—the Kid could never forget that he had once been a border smuggler who caused various peace officers considerable trouble and had a fair piece of it given back by them.
“Sounds bad,” drawled Dusty. “What sort of trouble’ve you got, Garve?”
“Just about the worse kind,” replied Green. “That fuss down at the Silver tip might have blown Roberts County wide apart. I tell you, Dusty, this whole section’s likely to explode and blow apart at the seams any day now.”
“How come?”
“There’s been a fair amount of slow-elking going on. In fact more than a fair amount. There’s been a hell of a lot of it.”
“Slow-elking’s bad,” Dusty admitted.
“There’s more than that,” Green warned. “At least six men have disappeared.”
“How’d you mean, disappeared?” the Kid asked.
“Just that, Lon. Take young Billy Winson of the Rafter Bar. He left their place to hunt for strays and didn’t come back. Brinded’s crew went out looking for him and couldn’t find a trace. Well, they didn’t think too much about it at first. Bratley and Laslo had been hounding Winson and making his life miserable, so Brinded figured he’d most likely hauled his freight. Only thing being that he’d left all his thirty-year-gatherings behind.” iv
“Which doesn’t look like he’d left of his own free will,” Dusty commented.
“He hadn’t much, few clothes, stuff like that, nothing personal,” Green answered. “And Bratley can be real mean when he’s riled.”
“So you figured Winson had left the area,” Dusty said.
“I’m town marshal, it happened on the range and out of my jurisdiction,” Green pointed out. “Anyways, Joe Vasquez’s deputy sheriff up this end and he looked into it. Joe reckons that Winson was afork a real good horse and might’ve figured it worth more than a few cheap clothes—or did figure it until Wart Geary disappeared about two weeks after Winson took off. This time Brinded really searched. He cut that range like it was spring round-up. Didn’t find Geary, but learned that somebody had been slow-elking in a big way.”
“How big?” asked Dusty.
“They looked to have been hitting at least once a week for months, taking half-a-dozen head at a time. Killed, butchered and loaded on to a wagon, the hides buried on the spot.”
A low whistle left Dusty’s lips, although it was not caused by hearing the hides had been left behind. That could be expected; one piece of meat looked like another, but the hide invariably carried a brand on it by which ownership might be easily established. What caused Dusty’s whistle was the number of head taken. As segundo of a ranch, he knew the value of cattle and estimated what the slow-elking must have cost Brinded.
He also knew the dangers of such a situation and understood Green’s concern about his and the Kid’s presence in Roberts County. Slow-elking, illegally killing and butchering cattle, ranked with cow stealing in the ranch owner and cowhands’ opinion; being regarded as crimes for which death offered the only sufficient punishment. While a traveler might be excused killing one head if really hungry and unable to shoot some wild animal, taking a whole bunch could not be overlooked. The full implications of the affair went beyond the ranch dweller’s objection to being robbed, for Green implied that the culprit had not yet been discovered.
“Why didn’t somebody start following tracks?” asked the Kid, making what, to him, appeared the obvious solution.
“Joe Vasquez did, and he reckons to be pretty good at following sign,” answered the marshal. “Trouble being that he needs sign afore he can follow it. Only both times there’d been heavy rain between the feller disappearing and a search started. It washed out any tracks.”
“So then either that Bratley jasper, or some other hothead started talking and laying the blame on some other outfit,” Dusty guessed.
“Which’s just how it happened,” agreed the marshal. “Bratley started giving it out that Bradded Box knew where the stuff went. Nobody took any notice at first. Of course all the other ranchers started combing their range and they found that somebody had been making big antelope in fair numbers every damned which ways.”
“All of them?” asked Dusty.
“Everyone brought in hides as proof. Then first one spread and another started to lose men. Naturally they’d got hands riding the range pretty frequent and four more have disappeared, every time without a trace. You know this’s a tolerably damp section—?”
“They do say you get your share of rain, and more,” Dusty answered.
“It rains good and regular, that’s for sure,” said Green. “The gang only hit when rain clouds gather over the Wapiti Hills and the rain washed out all their sign.”
“You said all the spreads had been hit and lost men,” drawled Dusty. “Surely that points to some outside bunch.”
“That’s what I’ve used to keep the ranchers from painting for war,” Green replied. “It might’ve worked, only you know cowhands.”
“I’ve met a few,” admitted Dusty dryly. “Some of them tend to jump the easiest way, especially trouble-makers like Bratley.”
“He started saying that whichever ranch did the slow-elking, it’d make it look like they were getting hit too—which I admit makes good sense to me,” Green said. “Not that I’d want to admit it aloud.”
Dusty could imagine how the situation developed. At first the various ranch crews would work in harmony to try to discover their common enemy. Then, as time passed without success, discontent and anger at the loss of companions rose. Under those conditions a few idle words might easily lead to real bad trouble. It said much for Garve Green’s ability as a lawman that nothing more serious than talk came up over the months since the first disappearance.
“It’s not been easy to hold things down,” Green admitted when the small Texan congratulated him on his success. “There was a fight between the Lazy V and DM boys last pay day that might’ve blown things wide apart, but Joe and I managed to cool it down without gun-play. I knew that by this month things wouldn’t be so easy. So I called in all the ranchers and asked them to spread their paying out, make sure that only one spread had men in at a time.”
“It looks like they agreed,” commented the Kid.
“They did. None of them wants a range war any more than I do.”
“That figures,” Dusty said. “They’ve too much to lose by it.”
“I’ve got the town held down,” Green went on. “But what scares me is that it might blow up on the range.”
“Sure,” Dusty agreed. “If men from two of the outfits meet out there, a wrong word could set it off.”
All too well Dusty knew the tempestuous nature of cowhands and their intense loyalty to the brand hired them. Once a cowhand tossed his bedroll into a ranch’s wagon—even if only figuratively—he became a part of the outfit and fully committed to any action it took. A chance meeting on the range, with feelings running so high, and old friendships would be forgotten. Every man wore a gun for his protection; one killing might easily spark off a range war that would ruin every rancher in the county.
That, in a way, accounted for Green’s lack of cordiality at seeing two good friends. While never seeking trouble, Dusty bore the reputation of being real fast with his guns. Such a reputation attracted trouble like iron filings to a magnet. A young hard-case wishing to make a name for himself often sought out one of the top guns with the intention of forcing a fight and gaining fame by emerging victorious. If that happened in Roberts County—with the usual result of a dead or badly wounded aspirant to fame—the remainder of his crew were likely to say Dusty worked for some other outfit, with the inevitable demands for revenge.
Although the Kid did not have the glamour of being a top gun, he might also have a fight forced on him. His Indian-dark, innocent face and choice of armament often led trouble-causers to make the mistake of picking upon him, with fatal, or near-fatal, results. If that happened under the present conditions, an ugly situation might easily develop.
The fact that Dusty and the Kid sided with Gaff, a member of the Bradded Box, would not go unnoticed and might be construed as support for that ranch. So any incident involving a hand from one of the county’s other ranches could easily flare up into the war Green dreaded.
“I’ll steer clear of trouble,” Dusty promised. “But I fixed with Mark to meet him here and aim to do it.”
“Just who do you reckon’s behind this slow-elking, Garve?” asked the Kid.
“There you have me, Lon. I’ve known all the local ranchers and businessmen for around three years and don’t see any of them being mixed in a thing like it.”
“Would any of them be needing money?” Dusty wanted to know.
“Not that I know about. The cattle business’s good and most of them are clear with the bank, or getting that way.”
“How about in the neighboring counties?”
“We’ve the San Mig Apache reservation on two sides, Dusty. Azul Rio County’s to the south and the Wapiti Hills to the west.”
“You can forget the Apaches,” drawled the Kid. “They wouldn’t take the time or trouble to butcher any beef they stole.”
“And there’s only three spreads in Azul Rio,” Dusty went on. “I know all the owners, they’re honest and you can trust them.”
“Which leaves the Wapiti Hills,” the Kid finished.
“Do you know them?” asked Green.
“We know about them,” Dusty replied. “Enough to swing around them any time we’ve come through this way.”
“I’m tolerable surprised you white folks didn’t try to give ’em to the Injun brother,” said the Kid sardonically. “Seeing’s how they’re just about rock and nothing else. Make a real good reservation, I’d say.”
“If you’re getting bitter, we’d best have you fed,” Dusty told his friend, although he had to admit there was something in the Kid’s views on what the white man regarded as an ideal home for Indians.
“I feel a mite hungry myself,” Green went on. “We’ll go along to the hotel and see what they can do for it.”
Any further discussion on the slow-elking had to be postponed until after the meal. On arrival at the hotel, Green and the Texans were joined by a couple of local businessmen and the talk turned to general subjects rather than county problems. One of the men owned a store and gave out a bit of news which interested both the Texans. It seemed that he had taken over a nearly new Conestoga wagon and team in security for a sizeable loan and became owner when the other party died in a mining accident. Having no use for the big wagon, the storekeeper offered it to the highest bidder. A freight outfit bought the wagon and promised to send along a driver to collect it.
“Should be here by now,” the man complained. “Maybe Killem’s changed his mind and don’t want it. That’d just be my luck.”
“Did you say ‘Killem’, Happy?” Dusty asked, having been introduced to the storekeeper. “Would that be Dobe Killem?”
“Sure.”
“I wonder—” Dusty said.
“I hope not,” the Kid went on. “If Mark met her, he might be days afore he gets here.”
“Met who?” Green inquired, although he could guess from what he knew of the Killem freight outfit.
Before either of the Texans could enlighten the marshal, Happy—so called because of his pessimistic outlook—continued with his tale of woe. To listen to him, everything he touched went wrong. He felt sure that even if Killem intended to honor their agreement, either the driver would get lost or become involved in a disaster during the trip to Robertstown.
