Raw Land (19 page)

He stepped out into the night and struck a match. There, among their horses was Pres's own black gelding still saddled, its fetlocks muddy, its hair dried curly.

“He was standin' at the ford when we passed it this mornin',” Will drawled. “We figured to use him, but now we got you, and we won't need him. I'll give him to you.”

Pres said shakily, “What you aimin' to do, Danning?”

Will laughed softly. “Now that,” he drawled, “is a surprise. I wouldn't aim to spoil your grub.”

“You ain't—”

Will's face changed, and the match died, but his voice was thoughtful. “No, we don't aim to kill you, Pres. Maybe you'll wish we had when we're through with you, though.”

Pres didn't pay attention to anything but the food. But once he was finished eating, he looked at the two men with Will. They were hardcases, all right, tight-lipped, silent, suspicious-looking men. They didn't talk and looked to Will for a cue to their behavior. Will was silent, smiling now and then in secret amusement.

When they were finished, Will rose. “Well, we better get to work, boys.”

“Where you goin'?” Pres asked suspiciously.

“We're goin' to take your horse with us,” Will drawled. “You just go to bed, and we'll call you around daylight.”

Pres watched them file out into the night, and his curiosity was whetted. Something was up, but he was too tired to figure it out. He had a feeling that if he was smart he'd light out afoot tonight, but he knew he couldn't make more than a couple of miles in his condition.

Outside, when they had ridden out of earshot, Jack Rainey pulled up. “Better tell us about this,” he said to Will.

“I lied to you,” Will said calmly. “I figured I couldn't get you to throw in with me any other way. There was no risk for you. I ain't Pres Milo. That's Pres Milo back there. He'll ride with us, and I reckon he'll do anything I say.”

“But if he ain't in on this, he'll squeal.”

“Nobody'll believe him,” Will said. “He's forked himself, and his boss knows it. By the time I let him go, you'll have your stuff clear, and nobody will look for you. Case will settle with him.”

“And not us?”

“It's his name will be on the bill of lading,” Will pointed out. “That's all Case needs, that's all he wants.”

Jack Rainey said dubiously, “How do we know?”

“You don't,” Will said. “But will you take a chance on it for my third of the cattle?”

Both the Raineys were silent. Finally Phil blurted out, “Then what in hell are you doin' this for?”

“Not money,” Will said calmly. “I'm doin' it to get him in a jam. You got it all right there. And I won't get him in any jam if I let you two get caught with the beef, will I?”

“No,” Rainey said reluctantly.

“Then you'll be clear. I got to have you get away with the beef to nail him. I can't double-cross you, any way you look at it.” He paused. “I'm not crowdin' you into it. If you don't want a hundred and fifty head of beef, pull out. If you do, stick.”

“I'll take a chance on it,” Rainey said. “I don't understand it, but I'll take the chance.”

“Wait a minute,” Will said. “You'll have those two men you hired waitin' for you in the brakes, won't you? You figured to have them drive the shippin' beef down, and you aimed to drive the stolen beef off, didn't you?”

“That's what we said.”

“Then you come along with me, Jack, and let Phil go with them. That way, you'll see I won't cross you.”

“Okay.”

There was a moon at ten, and with the aid of its light they rounded up the small clusters of beef that dotted this rolling Nine X range. It was open country, and the bedded cattle were not hard to spot.

It was like a leisurely, fumbling roundup. Jack held the herd while Will and Phil rode the ridges pushing down the stuff. At their approach, even the cattle hidden in the brush came to their feet with an alarmed snort. By daylight, Jack was easing the growing herd north and east toward the brakes, while the other two pushed the other cattle down to join the big herd. By midmorning, they had an easy three hundred head moving north, and Will dropped out and rode back to the line shack, on his way picking up Pres's horse, which they had staked out.

Pres, looking haggard but rested, was waiting for him at the shack. Will ordered him to mount, and they set out after the herd. Pres kept watching Will with an uneasy expression that made Will smile. Then, topping a ridge, they caught sight of the herd trailing north.

Pres hauled up, looked at it, and turned to Will, eyes goggling.

“You're runnin' off Nine X beef!”

“And you'll help us,” Will said gently. “This time we got the guns, Pres, and you haven't. So line out there and ride drag with the boys.”

“Case'll get you for this!” Pres said savagely. “You can't get away with it.”

“Will he?” Will grinned. “Light a shuck, now.”

Pres sullenly joined Phil at drag, and Jack moved up to swing. Will rode point, heading toward the nearest jut of the brakes.

That afternoon the herd was swallowed up in the canyons. It was better driving here, for the cattle couldn't scatter, and the Raineys hazed them unmercifully.

Late that night, cutting in from a western canyon, they came to the Quartz Wells, which were on Will's land. Quartz Wells lay at the head of a broad canyon barren of graze but big enough so that the herd could be accommodated and easily held.

Two men of the same type as the Rainey boys were camped there, and after a quick meal, Will told them off as night herders, and the rest rolled into blankets. Will gave Pres his own blankets and kept watch himself. This was too perfect to be spoiled by Pres's seizing a gun and escaping.

At daylight next morning, the herd was split. Phil Rainey and the two hired hands took half the herd up an arroyo that led off to the north. Will and Jack and Pres headed east with the rest toward the Sevier Creek pens on the east edge of the brakes where the railroad skirted it.

They made a dry camp that night in a blind canyon, and Jack Rainey spelled Will. Pres had not spoken all day; the splitting of the herd had given him some clue to what was happening. Nor did he speak the next day.

The cattle were tired and hungry that last day, but they were hazed unmercifully all through it underneath an overcast sky.

In late afternoon, the arroyos began to slope steeply, and they could see beyond the ramparts of the brakes the faint green of Sevier. The Sevier Creek pens were halfway down the long valley, placed there so that the shippers in the south end of the valley would not have to make the long drive to Sevier.

The cattle finally pushed out into grass, and Rainey and Pres and Will hauled up.

Will dismounted and rolled a smoke; the others did, too. Two miles distant were the Sevier Creek pens, a weathered tangle of boards rising out of the prairie beside a sun-scoured way station. On the siding stood a locomotive ahead of a string of cattle cars, its smoke pluming lazily into the overcast sky, then mushrooming above the train. This was their string of cars.

Will lighted his smoke and regarded Pres. “Guessed what's up, Pres?”

“Nothin' except you're stealin' Nine X beef that you'll hang for.”

“We're not stealin' beef, Pres—you are,” Will corrected gently.

Pres stared at him with blank eyes, not understanding. Will went on. “See those cars? They're ordered in your name. And you're goin' to sign the bill of lading, too.”

“Who said I was?”

Will shrugged. “Nobody'll make you. But if you don't I'm ridin' down to the office and telegraphin' to Case. I'll ask confirmation for this shipment. He'll know somethin's up, catch the eastbound tomorrow, and come over here. You'll be waitin' with a hundred and fifty head of gaunted beef, and so will the cars. What are you goin' to say to him?”

“That you stole 'em and took me along.”

“How you aim to prove it?”

Pres started to speak, and then his voice died. He looked at Rainey, who was grinning, and back to Will. “Oh,” he said. “Well, I'll show him the camps.”

“Sure you will,” Will drawled. “He'd never think you could've drove a hundred and fifty head over here alone. He'll think you refused your hired rustlers their cut and they give you away with that telegram, and then dodged out.”

“I'll prove you done it!” Pres shouted.

“How?” Will drawled. “Case knows my crew is locked up. You don't even know the names of the rannies you rode with. And as for the other hundred and fifty head, they'll be scattered fifty ways to Sunday by the time you trail 'em.”

Pres's face was black with anger. Will Danning had played this with a cunning that was perfect. Somehow Will knew that Case hated cattle stealing worse than anything in the world; he knew, too, that Case didn't trust his foreman. Only one thing remained for Pres, and that was to bluff it out.

He laughed gruffly. “You sucker, Danning. You think I could have worked for Case for fifteen years, and him not trust me?”

“Nobody trusts a man that keeps his job by blackmail,” Will drawled. Pres blinked, and Will went on. “Now that you and Case are partners, he'll figure that you think you can get away with anything, even rustlin'.”

Pres's face flushed. “What are you talkin' about?”

“You know what I'm talkin' about,” Will murmured. He threw away his cigarette. “Well, make up your mind, Pres. You goin' to sign that bill of lading and load the cattle, or do you refuse and aim to wait until Case catches you with the goods?”

Pres was caught and he knew it. Will Danning knew about the deal with Case. How? Milt wouldn't dare tell him, lest his own guilt come out. Then how did he know? Pres thought a moment, and knew that Will couldn't do anything about it. But the fact that he knew worried Pres. And now Will's work had put him in a spot that would take some careful squirming. He throttled his anger and considered this from both angles. He decided immediately that an honest foreman's duty would be to salvage what he could out of the mess and ship the cattle, making the best of a bad deal, then explain. Tell the truth.

“I'll ship,” he said curtly.

Will grinned faintly and murmured, “I figured you would.”

They loaded by lantern light in the hot and muggy night that presaged a storm. Pres, lest he grab a gun from the agent's quarters, was set by the loading-chutes to tally, while Will and Jack prodded the cattle into the cars. Finished, the bill of lading was signed by Pres, and the train clanged out into the darkness, showering a rain of cinders on them.

Will watched the agent bid them good night, then he strolled over toward Pres, who was following the agent inside.

“Where you goin', Pres?”

“To send Case a telegram,” Pres snarled. “You think I'm goin' to take this without fightin'?”

Will palmed his gun up and said quietly, “Get on your horse. I'm not through with you yet.”

“But—”

“Get over there.”

Rainey watched, grinning, while Pres went over to his horse. Then, Pres in the middle, the three of them headed back up the arroyo into the brakes. They rode all that night, and at dawn next morning it started to drizzle. They camped, ate, and rode deeper into the brakes.

At noon, Will pulled up and said to Jack Rainey, “How much time do you need, Jack, to get the beef clear?”

“Three more days would do it with this rain. Less, even.”

Pres looked at them, puzzled. Will said to him, “Get off that horse, Pres.”

Pres dismounted, his little pig eyes wary and angry.

Will reached back, tossed his saddlebag with the remainder of the grub to Pres, then reached down for the reins of Pres's horse.

“What are you doin'?” Pres demanded.

“Leavin' you here,” Will said.

“But I'm lost!” Pres howled. “Why don't you shoot a man and be done with it?”

Will said quietly, “We're over the height of land. All you got to do is follow one of these arroyos out and you'll reach Nine X range.”

“And you're goin' to take my horse?”

Will nodded. “It'll take you three days, I figure. This rain will give you water. If you save your grub it'll last you.”

Pres stood there, rain dripping off his head, his red face covered with a sandy beard stubble. In his eyes was pure murder. Rainey, observing him, drawled, “Don't cry.”

A fury seized Pres at these words. He rushed at Rainey, and Rainey put a foot on his chest and pushed him over. In his raging helplessness, Pres started to hunt for rocks to throw. There were none, just sand and mud.

Will left him that way, helpless and furious and afoot, and Rainey headed north. Will, dog-tired, headed for his hide-out to the south and east. He was too tired to wonder if his scheme would work. All he could do now was wait.

Chapter Sixteen

F
ALSE
A
S
H
ELL

Case was in Yellow Jacket for a week after the morning Pres left him for the ranch. During that time, Charlie Sommers had a preliminary hearing and was held on charges of aiding a prisoner to escape. The preliminary hearing for Will Danning's crew was postponed; without Will, there was no case. And during that week, Case had telegraphed all four of Chap's heirs stating the sale of Chap's property and asking if there was any dissent. He got permission from three on the fifth day, and on the morning of the seventh the last telegram came. Will Danning's property was his.

On the evening of the eighth day he rode into his spread, and Becky came to meet him out by the corral. She kissed him and then said, “Where's Pres, Dad? Tip has some news for him.”

“Isn't he here?” Becky shook her head, and Case said, “But he left town a week ago.”