Bittner, Rosanne (21 page)

"Soft soap? What is this, soft soap?"

Luke put his hat back on. "Never mind. You're a good worker, Runner. That's all that matters. We had a good drive, didn't we, boys? For once we didn't have trouble with renegade Sioux stealing some of our beef, and we only had one stampede. If it wasn't for that damn thunderstorm, even that wouldn't have happened. I have a feeling that from now on our biggest problem will be rustlers and squatters. According to men I talked to in Cheyenne, rustling is getting to be a big problem down in Colorado and Wyoming. It won't be long before they come our way."

"We can handle them," Ben answered, patting the six-gun on his hip.

"Maybe so, but I'm going to hire even more men next year for the drive. Shelby Preston wants me to bring an extra five hundred head next summer, twenty-five hundred total."

"Ah, those city people back East, they're getting a taste for good beef, huh?"

The question came from Sven Hansen, a Swede Luke had hired after the man had given up in the gold fields around Helena, the new name for Last Chance Gulch. It was one of the few gold towns that had survived and was still thriving. Most of the men who worked for Luke were men who had given up their dream of getting rich by finding gold. Some miners had found the precious metal but could not afford to mine it properly. Others had died at the hands of angry Sioux Indians who wanted the white men off their land.

Ben Garvey was one of those ex-miners. He was Luke's top hand now, and a close second was a quiet but rough-looking dark-haired man simply called Tex, who rode out ahead of the rest of them now, taking turns with Runner in scouting for any trouble that might lie waiting for them. Tex appeared to have some Mexican blood, but he never talked about his heritage, family, or where he had come from. He had arrived at the ranch one day looking for work. At first Luke had not trusted him. He suspected the man was wanted for some crime back East. But Tex had proved to be extremely talented in breaking horses, as well as in using a rifle. He was hard but dependable, a man who did not hesitate to pull a trigger when necessary. Out here, especially on cattle drives, that was the kind of man Luke needed.

He had also brought young Billy Sacks on the drive, wanting him to learn the ropes. Billy, twenty-three, had come to Montana with his then-seventeen-year-old wife, Anne, just last year. Both were orphans from the Civil War and had come west to forget the horrors of that war and start a new life. Billy thought that by working for Luke, he could learn the things he needed to know about settling in this country, and Luke had promised him that if he did a good job, he'd let him have a prime piece of property on his own land eventually, so that Anne could continue to live near Lettie. He well understood the strain of loneliness for a woman in this country. Maybe Anne wouldn't have to suffer that pain as intensely as Lettie had those first couple of years.

Billy was the only married man he had brought on the drive. He had left the rest of the married ones at the ranch, hired another six extras, all single men, for the cattle drive. Single men had less mental distractions to keep them from concentrating on the cattle, and they were more willing to put their lives on the line in times of danger. Most of the extras had stayed on at Cheyenne once the cattle were sold and were someone else's responsibility; but two, Cade Willis and Bob Dolan, were returning with him to the Double L.

They were all good wranglers, dependable men he could trust. He looked down at his saddlebags, stuffed with money paid by Shelby Preston, a buyer from Omaha. He'd got four dollars a head for his two thousand steer; eight thousand dollars. He'd heard in Cheyenne the army sometimes paid up to six dollars a head. With new forts being built in Montana and northern Wyoming because of a new campaign against the Sioux, he figured he'd see about getting a government contract to sell beef to the army, which would in turn help ensure that he could continue to use government land for grazing.

It wouldn't be long now before he could build Lettie the biggest, finest home in Montana. He smiled at the thought of it, but those thoughts were interrupted when Tex came riding back to them at a gallop.

"Some men camped on the other side of the hill," he told Luke. "They've got a good-size campfire going, and it looks like they're roasting something over it."

Luke and the rest of the men followed him to the crest of the hill, where they halted their horses and studied the camp below. "Who do you think that is, Runner?" Luke asked.

Runner watched them for a few seconds. "Got a wagon down there. Looks like it's piled with robes. Buffalo hunters, I think. There be more and more of them lately. They skin the buffalo and leave all the meat. I no like these buffalo hunters."

Luke squinted against a setting sun. In his years of riding the perimeter of his property, rooting out squatters, outlaws, and Indians, he had become as adept at scouting as Tex and Runner. He sniffed the air. "Smell that?" he asked.

"Smells damn good," Tex spoke up, "like roastin' meat."

"Like beef," Luke answered.

"A man gets tired of buffalo meat," Tex kidded.

"I suppose he does," Luke answered, "but he doesn't come onto Fontaine land and take whatever beef he wants for free. Let's go."

All eight men rode down the hill toward the strangers camped around the fire. As they came closer, Luke could see they were a rough-looking bunch, although after weeks on the trail and some hard riding to get back home, he and his men didn't look much better. The intruders rose, and Luke counted six men. The wind carried their smell, which overpowered even that of the roasting hindquarter of beef that hung over their fire. It was an offensive smell, the scent of old blood, buffalo robes not yet fully dried and cured. A few of the hunters still had bloodstains on their clothing and hands, which they had not bothered to clean.

"Enjoying your meal, boys?" Luke asked.

The apparent leader of the bunch stepped away from the others, putting on a smile. "You fellas want to join us? They's plenty of meat for all."

Luke looked past him at a dead steer lying in the distance, its body covered with thousands of flies. The carcass was hacked up but not even gutted. They had apparently killed the valuable animal just for the meat they needed at the moment. "Do you know who that steer belongs to?"

The man he was facing eyed all eight of them carefully, stepped back a little. The others with him all straightened, one man resting his hand on a six-gun at his side. "I don't reckon it matters," the leader answered. "It's just one little ol' cow, wanderin' around where it don't belong."

"That 'cow,' as you put it, belongs to
me,
mister. Luke Fontaine! You're on Fontaine land,
my
land, and you've killed one of my best steers. I suggest you get the hell off my land, right now!"

"Or what?" One of the others spoke up then, leaning on a rifle with the longest and biggest barrel Luke had ever seen. "You know what this is, mister?" The man, so tall and skinny he hardly looked strong enough to hold the big gun, slowly picked up the rifle. "This here's a buffalo gun, made special for huntin' the big beasts. It shoots farther and makes a bigger hole than any other rifle there is. I hate to tell you what it can do to a man. It would—"

Before he could even finish the sentence, Luke's six-gun was drawn and fired. The man screamed out when the bullet ripped through his right wrist, and the buffalo gun fell to the ground.

"You son of a bitch!" one of the others spoke up. Luke waved the six-gun. "All of you, get the hell off my property!"

"You gonna let him do this, Cully?" one of the others asked their leader.

"You bastard." The one called Cully sneered. "We didn't see no fences! If your goddamn beef stray beyond where they're supposed to be, that ain't our problem! Keep your damn beef on your own land!"

Luke rode closer, suddenly kicking out at Cully and landing a foot in the man's chest, knocking him onto his rump. "Mister, as far as you can see from here is Fontaine land! I just haven't fenced it all yet. And even if it wasn't, Fontaine beef is Fontaine beef, whether it's on my land or
off
it, and theft is theft! Now you take your stinking bodies and your stinking buffalo robes and get the hell out of here, and don't let me catch you anyplace around here again!"

Out of the corner of his eye Luke saw the man with the six-gun start to draw. He whirled and shot, opening a hole in the man's chest. Only a fraction of a second after his own gunshot, he heard another gun fired. Another buffalo hunter went down, and he turned to see Tex's gun smoking.

Cully had got to his feet by then. He stepped away, glaring at Luke. "You shot my brother, you bastard!"

Luke aimed his six-gun at the man, and the rest of Luke's men had rifles and handguns ready. "A man pulls a gun on another man, he takes the chance of getting shot,"

Luke growled. "It's just a fact of life out here. Now you take those two dead bodies and your gear and get going!
Now!
And leave the buffalo guns behind! I don't intend for you to turn around and use them on us after you get a couple of hundred yards away!"

"We need those guns for our livelihood!"

Luke nodded to Tex and the others. "Take their rifles."

His men surrounded the buffalo hunters and picked up all the buffalo guns they could find. The skinny man with the wounded wrist and Cully both let off a string of curses then as Luke's men forced them to pick up their things and get on their horses. Two of them picked up the dead bodies and threw them onto the wagon full of robes.

Cully rode up to Luke then, bitter hatred in his eyes. "You'll regret this, Fontaine! You can't be everyplace at once, and I expect you're gone a lot, runnin' such a big ranch, ain't you? You got a wife, Fontaine? Kids? You'd best keep a good eye on them."

Luke charged off his horse and landed into him, both men plunging to the ground and rolling in the gravel and sage. Luke's men backed away and watched guardedly, keeping an eye on the rest of the buffalo hunters. Cully rolled on top of Luke and pulled a huge knife. He was a big man, shorter than Luke, but strong and burly. Luke grasped his wrist, straining to keep the knife away from him. Tex and the others kept their six-guns ready, afraid to fire for fear of hitting Luke as the two men tumbled and rolled.

Finally Luke was the one on top, still grasping Cully's wrist. Cully reached up and grasped at Luke's face, trying to gouge his eyes, while Luke slammed the man's knife hand against a rock, over and over until finally Cully dropped the knife. He grabbed Cully's other wrist then, pulled it away from his face and managed to jerk the big, burly man to his feet. Cully kicked at his legs, but Luke landed a big fist into the man's belly, making him grunt and knocking the air out of him. Several more hard blows to his gut, ribs, and face sent the man sprawling, his face bloody, no fight left in him.

Luke knelt down then and pulled him to his knees, his own eyes bloodshot and bruised from Cully's attempt at blinding him. He jerked the man close, teeth gritted, his face smeared with sweat and dirt.
"Nobody
threatens my wife and my kids, you stinking bastard! You be glad you're leaving here still breathing! If I ever see your face anyplace near here again, I'll shoot you on sight, whether you're armed or not!" He shoved the man back to the ground, where Cully lay groaning. Luke looked at the other hunters. "Get him the hell out of here, before I decide to drag all of you to the nearest tree and hang you!"

The rest of them were sullen but appeared humbled. "We're goin', mister," one of them spoke up. The tall, skinny man dismounted and asked one of the others to help him pick up Cully. They helped the man walk to the wagon and climb into it, where he moaned as he fell into the robes beside his dead brother. The other two mounted up, and one of them picked up the reins to Cully's horse. Another climbed into the wagon. Then they all rode off.

"Keep an eye on them till they're completely out of sight," Luke told his men. If they rode hard they could get home by nightfall, and he missed Lettie and the kids. He didn't want to be gone one more day, and he knew Billy was anxious to get home to Anne.

"You okay, boss?" Runner asked.

Luke rubbed at his eyes with his shirtsleeve. "I'm all right." He picked up Cully's knife, and saw that it was very well made. "Looks like Lettie's got a new butcher knife," he commented.

The others laughed, beginning to feel the relief of a successful confrontation.

"Pick up those buffalo guns. They're damn good weapons. You men divide them up among yourselves." Luke grunted when he bent down then to pick up his hat. He mounted his horse, a big roan gelding he'd chosen to replace Paint, who was getting too old to hold up on a cattle drive. "Billy, get yourself a clean blanket and wrap it around that quarter of beef. You take it home to Anne and you can have a royal meal. Have her cut some off for the rest of the men." He rubbed at his right calf. The old wound still hurt him whenever he did anything strenuous. "It's too bad they let the rest of the carcass go like that. If it had been gutted and wasn't covered with flies, I'd take it back and get some use out of the meat. What a damn waste!"

"Now you know how the Indians feel when they see the same thing happen to the buffalo," Runner commented.

Luke nodded, the pain of Nathan's capture still hitting him hard at times. He wanted to hate the Sioux, and most of the time he did. But there was a part of him that could understand how they felt. There ought to be a way the Indians and whites could share the land, but drastically different cultures prevented that. Though he didn't believe Nathan was alive, if he was, he might be out there living with those Indians who still refused to go to a reservation. He might be dependent on the buffalo for survival.

He turned his horse, telling himself it was a foolish thought. After all these years, none of the Crow or Shoshone scouts he had checked with from time to time had heard anything about a white captive with the Sioux, or a "white Indian," who rode with them. He had never quite given up his search, but he knew it was hopeless. It was Lettie who wouldn't give up believing Nathan was still alive, and he didn't have the heart to try to discourage the thought. It helped her to believe it.