Collected Works of Zane Grey, page 1300
“Oh, Sterl! Am I pretty no longer?”
“You couldn’t help being pretty, Leslie!” replied Sterl, yielding as always to the appeal which destroyed his relentlessness.
“Then I’m not to ride herd with you tonight?”
“I didn’t say so.”
“But you’re my boss.
“Long ago, Leslie, before this trek had made me old and you a little savage — then I called myself your boss. But no more!”
“What if I am a little savage?” she asked, wistfully.
Red and Slyter returned from the Dann camp, and Slyter said: “Saddle up, all hands. Stanley wants the mob driven into that basin out there, and surrounded.”
Sterl went on with Red. The afterglow of sunset shone over the land. The vast mass of merging clouds shut out the northeast. The two seemed to be in conflict.
“I seen Beryl,” Red was saying, his voice deep with pain. “She lay on her bed under the wagon. When I called she didn’t answer. I stepped up on the wheel, so I could look down at her. I spoke an’ she whispered, ‘Bury me out on — the lone prairie!’ You know I used to sing thet to her — before Ormiston...Sterl, could Beryl Dann look at me like thet, smile like thet, say thet to me if she meant to run off with this black-faced rustler?”
“Red, give me something easy,” replied Sterl, grimly. “Back home I’d swear to God she couldn’t. But out here, after what we’ve gone through, I say hell yes, she could! Take your pick.”
“Pard, if you was me, would you watch Beryl’s wagon tonight, instead of guardin’ herd?”
“No! — Red, you might kill Ormiston, and kill him too soon. Let these Danns find out what we know. Then you can break loose an’ I’ll be with you. Man alive, she can’t get away — Ormiston can’t get away — not with her or his stolen cattle or his life. If he took Beryl on horseback we’d run him down. Red, old man, come to your senses!”
“Thanks, pard. Reckon I — I was kinda queer. Mebbe the heat — Heah’s the hosses.”
“What’ll you ride?” asked Sterl, as he, looked the remuda over. King whinnied and thudded toward him.
“Leslie’s Duke. He’s a big water dog. An’ mebbe there’ll be a flood. Them clouds all same Red River color, pard.”
Mounted, the cowboys headed for the grassy basin already half covered with cattle. Slyter, pounding along to join the cowboys, expressed anxiety for his horses. Red said he was sure that they would stand, unless run down by a frightened mob. The peril lay with the cattle.
Stanley Dann rode around the mob, hauling up last where Sterl and Red had been joined by Larry and Roland. “Station yourselves at regular intervals. Concentrate on the river and camp sides,” said Dann. “Probably the mob won’t rush. If they do, keep out of their way. They won’t run far. From the looks of it we are in for a real storm.”
“Let’s stick pretty close together,” suggested Sterl to Red.
“You can’t lose me, pard!”
“The air’s stirring. Smells dusty!”
“But it’s them low clouds thet holds the storm. Gosh, but they’re black!”
Then the first deep, detonating thunder rolled toward the waiting drovers. The tired, heat-dulled cattle gave no sign of uneasiness.
“Bet you they won’t stampede,” called Red, some yards to Sterl’s right.
“They’re English cattle. They can’t be scared, maybe,” returned Sterl, jocularly.
Thunder boomed over the battlements of the ranges north and east. Flashes of lightning flared from behind them. Puffs of moving air struck Sterl in the face, hot like the breath of fire. The lacy foliage of the eucalyptus trees began to toss against a sky still clear. Heavy thunderclaps turned Sterl’s gaze back to the storm. The front of it had rolled over the ranges.
“Whoopee!” yelled Red. “She’s acomin’, an’ a humdinger!”
A hot gale struck Sterl. He turned his back, and felt that he was shriveling up like leather in a flame. The gum trees bent away from its force; streaks of dusty light sped along the ground; the afterglow faded into a gloaming that was a moving curtain before the wind. Leaves and grass and bits of bark whipped by, and King’s mane and tail stood straight out.
All at once Sterl’s senses awoke to a startling fact. The hot furnace blast had gone on the wind! The air was cool — damp! Red’s wild yell came, splitting Sterl’s ear. And with it a roar, steady, gaining, tremendous — the roar of rain.
The pall bore down upon them, steel-gray in the blazes of white fire, to swallow up earth and night and lightning and thunder. He could not see a hand before his face. But how he reveled in that drenching!
It swallowed up time, too, and he almost forgot the great mob of cattle. But to think of them was futile. Sterl shut his eyes, bent his head, and thanked heaven for every drop of that endless torrent. Stanley Dann’s faith and prayers were justified; the trek was saved! Then a rough hand on his shoulder roused him. He opened his eyes. The lightning flashes were far to the west, and the thunder rolled with them. The rain was pouring down, but not in a solid sheet. He could see indistinctly.
“Pard!” yelled Red, close to his ear. “Stampede! Feel the ground shakin’!”
CHAPTER 18
“LET’S FIND THE break!” shouted Red. “You ride back. I’ll ride ahaid.”
Turned away from the pelting rain, Sterl could distinguish the darker line of cattle against the white grass. They were not moving on this side. He rode forward and checked King to listen again. There was a decided roar of hoofs, but it was lessening in volume.
He pulled King to a walk. Perhaps a spur of cattle had broken out of the main mob. Then, in a lull of the heavy downpour he caught gunshots! Turning to peer back he saw dim flashes far across the herd. Dann’s drovers on that side were trying to hold the mob.
Presently Sterl made out the dark shape of a horseman. Riding close he shouted and got an answer. It was Roland.
“They’re quiet here,” yelled the drover. “They’ll hold now. If they were going to rush over there, it’s strange they didn’t when the storm was worst.”
“Strange at that,” replied Sterl. “Where’s your next guard?”
“Not far along. Drake. He told me Slyter was fussing about his horses.”
“Small wonder. I’ll ride back to Red.”
The rain still poured down, with intermittent heavier bursts. He had sent Friday back to the camp before the break of the storm, and he did not feel sure just where he and Red had parted. He halted and on the last stop found the cattle jostling and pressing one another. The roar seemed to have grown louder. In the gray gloom the mob moved and swayed as if from irresistible pressure at its center.
Sterl trotted King a hundred yards farther around the herd. Two riders emerged from the impenetrable black.
“Heah you air,” shouted Red, as the three met.
“All jake down the line on this side,” reported Sterl.
Larry told him that Dann’s drovers on that side of the herd were all gone.
“Cattle rarin’ to slope around there,” interposed Red. “It ain’t safe, but we might stop a stampede.”
“But those guards will be back unless...”
Red interrupted: “Like hell they will! Pard, we had it figgered. Some of them drovers, in cahoots with Ormiston, have cut out a bunch of cattle. It wasn’t no stampede. But there will be one if we don’t watch out. Let’s mosey.”
The three riders loped their mounts through the driving rain and lashing grass.
“Ride up an’ down heah,” shouted Red. “Blaze away with yore guns. If there’s a break anywhere, run for yore lives.”
They separated. Sterl rode back firing, along the way they had come. Close to the herd he felt their unrest and heard their bawling. Along Sterl’s line of progress the restive cattle finally settled down and stood. But in the other direction Red and Larry were encountering extreme difficulty. Sterl joined them at the crucial point. For a few moments it seemed vain to attempt blocking the cattle. But the intrepid riders, at the expense of practically all their ammunition, finally held the animals in check. The excited fringe of the mob quieted down.
“Jest luck!” panted Red, as the three reined to together.
“Boys,” said Larry, “I’ll tell the Danns who saved their mob. New work to me, and my heart was in my throat half the time...Where are those drovers?”
“Haw! Haw! Yes, shore, where in the hell air they? Heah! Listen... What’s thet roar?”
“My God, they’re on the rampage again!”
“No, boys,” yelled Red. “Thet’s not cattle! I know thet noise! It’s the river!”
Sterl marveled that he had not been as quick as Red to recognize that steady, increasing roar. All in a flash he was back along the Cimarron, the Purgatory, the Red, the Brazos — all those western rivers that he had known and battled in flood.
“Fellers, thet big dry wash has been raisin’ all the time. This is flood!”
“Red, we’d better pull leather out of here.”
“I should smile. It’s good the camp is on thet high bench...Gosh, do you heah her comin’?”
A seething, crashing, bumping roar bore down from the black night. The riders loped their horses toward higher ground. They encountered a two-foot wall of water rushing in at that end. Somewhere above the basin an overflow from a tributary had met the main flood head on. They waded their horses through to the rising slope.
Gray dawn broke. The rain had ceased except for a drizzle, but the overcast sky predicted continuous downpour. The mob of cattle stood heads down, knee-deep in the overflow. The stream that had half filled the basin had dwindled to a ribbon. Across the basin and the flat beyond, the mainstream raced full from bank to bank. Green trees and logs floated swiftly by. In the middle of the river huge waves curled up to break back upon themselves.
“Red, give us a count,” said Sterl, grimly.
“Wall, I was jest about to,” replied the cowboy. “About four thousand haid there now. Ormiston an’ his bushrangers have sloped with half of our cattle!”
“Bushrangers!” yelled Larry. “Good grief!”
“Shore, bushrangers! Let’s go to camp. All the rest of the drovers have rid in for tea, or they’re drowned — or gone.”
Friday met them and took Sterl’s horse. The aborigine’s blank visage and his silence were ominous. Bill had a fire going, with tea brewing. No womenfolk were in sight. Over at Dann’s camp there was less activity, but a group of drovers stood as if stunned.
Slyter paced to and fro like a maniac confined in a cell. Some of Leslie’s race horses were gone, including Lady Jane and Jester.
“What the hell you beefin’ about, boss?” queried Red, curtly. “Thet ain’t nothin’ atall. Wait till you get the load.”
Sterl, still silent, hurried to change into dry clothes, refill his belt with cartridges, and get out his rifle. He made sure that the oilskin cover was tight. Red cursed Slyter through his teeth. “What you think, Sterl? Thet hossmad geezer doesn’t even know about the loss of the cattle. An’ damn little he’d care if he did. It’s a cinch Ormiston stole those race hosses.”
“Rustler!” rasped Sterl. “We’ve got a job. And my God, am I ready for it!”
They hurried out to the fire and ate standing, eyes alert, thinking hard. Larry came running whiskyardly on his bow-legs. His face was gray, and his eyes popped.
“Hey, wait a minnit, you!” ordered Red, sharply. “Get yore breath, Slyter, come heah.”
The drover, gloomy-faced and disheveled, stamped to the fire, almost belligerently.
“How many hosses missin’?” asked Red. “Five! Leslie’s! We can’t track those racers, not after this deluge. And I’ll lose them. It’ll about kill Leslie.”
“Yore hosses were stole, Slyter.”
“Who — Who?” gasped Slyter, staggered. “By thet bushranger you an’ Dann have been harborin’.”
Sterl broke his silence. “Keep it from Leslie, boss, if you can. Bill, rustle me some meat and bread.”
“Wal, Larry, if you can talk now come out with it,” said Red.
“Two thousand head and five drovers gone! Eric Dann gone! Beryl gone!”
“Ahuh. How about Ormiston’s wagons?”
“Gone too, so Drake said. Mob not in sight.”
“Come, Friday,” called Sterl.
They hurried toward Dann’s camp, followed by the others. The leader turned from the group of drovers.
“Bad doing, boss,” said Sterl. “What’s your angle?”
“There was a rush during the storm. My drovers followed, but they are not in sight. Eric and Beryl must have crossed to Ormiston’s camp last night and been stormbound.”
“How do you account for five of Slyter’s thoroughbreds being gone?”
“That is more news to me. They must have run away in the storm.”
“Mr. Dann, it is our opinion that they were stolen,” returned Sterl, bluntly.
Dann took that as Sterl imagined he would have taken a blow in the face — without the bat of an eyelash. “Stolen? Preposterous! What black would steal horses when there are cattle to eat?”
Red Krehl had listened attentively to this interview, while his blue eyes, clear and piercing, covered the camp. They flashed back to fix upon the leader.
“Dann, I’m orful sorry I have to hurt yore feeling’s,” he bit out, cool and bitter. “You been too friendly with a bushranger who turns out to be a slicker hombre than we savvied. Name of Ormiston, which I reckon ain’t his real name by a damn sight. He stole Slyter’s racers. He corrupted yore drovers an’ raided yore mob. He made a sucker out of yore weak-minded brother. He...”
“You blasphemous Yankee lout — to whom not even blood relationship is sacred!” boomed the leader.
“Save yore wind, boss,” snapped Red. “I’m pretty —— riled myself! Mebbe it might help for you to see thet your brother’s wagon is gone.”
It was indeed. Only his dray was there, its cover dripping with rain. But that discovery did not by any means convince Stanley Dann.
“Dann, there’s a lot to tell when I got time,” went on Red. “I heahed Ormiston say he was a bushranger. An’ Jack an’ thet hombre Bedford were his right-hand men. I knowed they all were rustlers before I’d been a month on this trek. Sterl, heah, knowed it, too.”
“Suspicion I don’t listen to,” thundered Dann. “If you had facts why didn’t you produce them?”
“Hellsfire, Dann! No man could tell you some things! But you gotta heah this. Ormiston is gone! An’ yore daughter went with him, — an’ so help me Gawd I still reckon it was by force!”
“Proofs, man proofs!” raged the giant.
“Come on out along the river,” retorted Krehl. He mounted in one long step. “Come, pard, fetch the black man. Drake, Slyter, all of you get in on this.”
Across the river, under the trees, Sterl espied one wagon, from the blackened and dismantled top of which thin smoke rose aloft in spite of the drizzle. Pieces of canvas lapping from branches, boxes and bales littered around attested to a hastily abandoned camp. Sterl did not even look for cattle.
A mile up the river Red halted his horse to wait for the others to come up. At this point there was a break in the border of trees. Above, a constriction in the river bed marked the rough center of the current.
As Sterl and the others reined in to line up back of the cowboy, he swept a fierce hand at a deep, miry trough newly cut in the bank. It extended fully a hundred yards up the river. A big herd of cattle, densely packed, had been run along this course, to go over the bank. Across the flood the opposite bank was sloping, and the center of its sandy incline showed a deep, broad trail of tracks. A novice at the cowboy game could have read that tale. Someone had seized a timely period during the storm to cut out a couple of thousand head, and cross them before the flood rose.
“Mr. Dann,” spoke up Drake, hollow-voiced. “I never trusted Ormiston and his drovers. They weren’t friendly with us. They had a set plan, and it must have worked out as they plotted it.”
All eyes turned to Stanley Dann. “It could have been a rush,” he boomed, “a rush in the storm! My drovers are with them.”
“You shore die hard,” drawled Red, halfway between admiration and contempt. “I gotta hand it to you for thet! Only look heah — down the track aways. There’s a daid hoss, an’ a daid drover. I’ve a hunch it’s Cedric.”
Red dismounted beside the prone drover. He did not recognize the horse, but he knew that wavy, tawny hair, even though it was sodden with blood and sand.
“Pard, it’s Cedric, all right, pore brave devil,” said Red, as he knelt beside the prone figure. “Herd ran him down. Trampled to a pulp, all except his haid. Look aheah! — So help me Gawd! — Sterl, heah’s a bullet hole!”
Sterl knelt to verify Red’s diagnosis. He saw plainly the hole in the back of the young drover’s head: His passion burned out the nausea caused by the ghastly remains of the fine boy. Then he espied the butt of a revolver almost concealed under Cedric’s side. He pulled it out, shook off the sand, opened the chamber. Six empty cartridge shells dropped out.
At this juncture the others, surrounding Dann, arrived.
“Aye, Cedric it is, poor boy!” burst out Dann, his sonorous voice full of grief. “The mob rushed over him. He died on guard!”
“Dann, a blind man could see thet,” drawled Red, whose habit was to grow cooler and deadlier as a hard situation tensely worked to its close. “It’s a cinch Cedric died on guard. But he was shot in the back of his haid — murdered — before the herd run over him.”
“Dann, it’s true,” put in Sterl, sternly. “There’s the bullet hole.”
“Larry, you examine thet hole,” suggested Red, as he arose, drew out a scarf and wiped his gory hands. “I don’t want no one heah to take my word. Nor Sterl’s.”
Larry, Drake and Slyter in turn minutely studied the wound in Cedric’s skull, and solemnly agreed. Stanley Dann, with corded brow and clouded eyes, listened to them; but he maintained that it must have been an accident, that Cedric and the other drovers had been firing to hold the cattle back, that in the blackness of the storm anything could have happened.
