The Overlanders (11 page)

She shook her head. “I can’t go along with that. You said most of this Swallowfork range was taken from others. Unless they’ve all quit the country those others have got a stake in this.”

“You just saw a couple of them. Lally and Frobisher. If they had four legs,” Grete said, “they’d rate with coyotes.”

Sary looked a long while at him. “You’re too hard on people. Isn’t there any faith in you?”

“Sure.” With his smile stretched thin and tough Grete slapped a hand against the butt of his pistol. “I’ve got a heap of faith in what this’ll do for me.”

For two interminable hours they slogged through the monstrous heat of Texas Canyon where every view, choked or cluttered, was distorted by an unrelieved glare refracted from the surface of the naked rock. It was more punishing than the roughs they had come through southeast of Bowie. It wasn’t black malpais — which at least had not crucified dust-inflamed eyes — but a kind of buff granite in a weird profusion of crazily strewn boulders that, of infinite variety, ranged from chunks the size of a midget’s head to mighty slabs that were huge as ships, some of these precariously balanced above the trail.

It was like crossing the bottom of some vanished sea. Prickly pear, occasional ocotillo brightly tipped with scarlet bloom, century plants with stalks thrust up like lances, Spanish dagger and yellowing yucca grew sparsely out of this barren soil with here and there among the rocks the incredibly twisted shapes of live oak, some of these hardly six feet tall and older, Grete said, than Balaam’s ass.

The wrinkled air of this trough was like a breath from hell. The ground underfoot was decomposed granite, loose on top and fetlock-deep, abrasive as a rasp against the unshod hoofs of the mares. The drive by now was strung out over nearly half a mile, the limping animals whickering miserably, barely able to drag one bleeding foot after another. And nothing to be done — “unless,” Grete told the protesting girl, “you can find some way of fashioning boots for them. Cloth’s no good and we haven’t got the metal or any way to shape it. It’s going to have to be leather, and when we’ve got all the saddles cut up more than half this bunch will still be barefoot.”

“But isn’t there some other way we could take? You said —”

“Not from here; and it’s not enough better to be worth two more days. We’ll quit this stuff pretty quick. Eight more miles and we’ll know what you’ve bit into.”

“You mean we’ll be at the claim?”

He sucked on a tooth and considered her grimly. “That’s right,” he said — “if Swallowfork let’s us get that far.”

She peered across the jumbled rocks toward the heights, glance darkly haunted, and wiped some of the moisture away from her neck. “Grete, did you kill French?”

Instead of answering, he skreaked around in the saddle to look back over the drive.

She said impulsively, “I don’t believe it. I know you’re hard, but…” Her eyes searched his face. “It was Ben, wasn’t it?”

“Whyever would you think that, Miz’ Hollis?”

“He’s that kind. We might as well face it. He’ll do anything he can to drive you out or get you killed.”

Grete’s mouth squeezed thin. He looked at her carefully. If that was concern tramping through her voice it damn sure wasn’t aroused over
him
. “Well, thanks,” he said, “for the warning. If you know any prayers you better chouse them toward Idaho. Next time
he
tries somebody’s liable to get planted.”

On that note he left her, pushing the dun out ahead of the drive, bleakly eyeing the country separating where they were from where he intended to climb out of this canyon. It was all up and down, more than a plenty of it out of his sight, practically all of it suitable to ambush.

With Sary still in his head he wondered somewhat bitterly if any person ever really came to know another. Generally you saw what they put out for you to see; occasionally, with luck, you might scratch a little deeper, or something — usually an emotion — briefly pulled the veil aside. Frequently this was bad although some good might come of it. It was bad because a man was apt to read more into such glimpses than would eventually prove to have been there. Too often you saw what you wanted to see.

This was certainly no time to be having his mind on a woman. It was the place where a man had better take a good look at his hole card. Crotton would know by now that he was back and Crotton wasn’t one to put trust in half-measures. When he struck it would be like an avalanche. He hadn’t forgotten the Lallys and Frobishers or what they would do if he got led up an alley. He knew all about hate. He’d come down on this drive like a clap of thunder.

All of Grete’s thinking heretofore had been filled with his own plans, with what he figured to do and how best to do it. He saw the truth now. Crotton wouldn’t wait.

The man couldn’t afford to. Grete should have seen this, should at least have worked up some alternate plan in the event prospective plans were, like now, no longer feasible. But all of Grete’s figurings had been predicated in terms of Swallowfork’s enemies, on the envy and fury and bitter resentment Crotton had stirred up over the years. Grete unconsciously had been counting — as Stamper had realized — on the whole range being eventually pulled into it. He had visualized success as coming through a carefully integrated series of hit-and-run impacts which must pull Crotton down sure as God made little apples.

Now as he thought about it, he realized all of that was out. Crotton had been way ahead of him.

The man’s only defense — and surely Crotton would have seen this — lay in hitting Grete fast with everything he had. To keep the rest of them off, to frighten them back into their subservient neutrality, he was bound to use Grete for a horrible example. He
had
to do this or all his past didos would rise up to engulf him.

Grete cursed his own blindness.

“Looks like that biscuit you’re chompin’ is plumb full of weevils,” Idaho remarked, bending his horse in beside Grete. “You tryin’ to kill these damn mares?”

Farraday scowled. He should have handled Frobisher different. He’d had the means within his grasp and had let whipped pride and arrogance bang the door on any aid he might have got from those King Crotton had humbled. A combine could have stood Crotton off, pecking away at the man, whittling his resources down chunk by chunk until, finally at bay, he was backed into a corner where their teeth could get at him. Now it was Grete who was bound for that corner and it was Stamper’s talk which had turned him so proud.

“You better wake up,” the gunfighter grumbled. “This stock’s in bad shape. Been a dozen foals dropped in the last fifteen minutes. Right now,” he said, whacking a boot with his rein ends, “the tail end of this drive is drug out for a mile.”

Grete hardly heard him. All Grete’s faculties were engaged in the frantic search to find some means of getting out of this trap he had dragged them all into.

Stroat — Felix Stroat, he remembered, was the fellow Crotton had lifted into that ramrod’s job. Stroat was an old hand, utterly loyal. Small, whip-thin, intolerant of anything which stood against the brand, he had been in line for that top-pay job when Crotton had put Grete over him.

The man had taken Grete’s orders but he had never quite managed to hide his resentment; Grete had sensed more than once the fury festering within. Multiplied by years it had become an ugliness, distorted — and here was Grete’s risk; but there might still be one thin chance. The possibility stemmed from Stroat’s character, from the compulsions which made Stroat do what he did… traits which might prove stronger than Stroat’s unreasoning bitterness could manage.

The Crotton ramrod was a man who could not bear to destroy anything which, in Crotton’s ownership, could be an asset to Swallowfork. Grete recalled how the man had once kidnapped a herd of cattle he’d been told to run over a cliff. This had worked out well for Crotton and should have fetched Stroat more than a straw boss’s job but Crotton, picking Grete for foreman, had wanted a man who would carry out orders and ride roughshod over everything. Stroat must have taken a particular delight in burning Grete out. Still corroded with hate, Stroat would boss whatever Crotton did now.

If the man realized his weakness and stood against it they were licked. Grete had to gamble that Stroat would not, that his pride in possessions would in the last ditch prove stronger than any other need which might sway him.

This was where Grete was in his thinking when Idaho, graveled by his inattention, irascibly caught at Grete’s reins, bringing both horses to a stop. “I say we’ve gone far enough — these mares has got to rest!”

“Get that paw off my reins.”

The gunfighter finally took the hand away. His yellow-flecked eyes never left Grete’s face. “I told you how it was going to be. You let that girl down —”

“She knows what the deal is.”

“She don’t know Crotton and that sonofabitch Stroat.”

“I gave her a chance to pull out —”

“That girl thinks you’re the right hand of God!” All the bleak frustration of the man’s balked passion was in those words he flung so bitterly at Grete. “You’re not foolin’ me! You’re out to make Crotton eat crow an’ you got about as much chance as a fiddler in hell.”

“You all through now?”

“You’ll know when I’m through!”

“Then get on with it. That Swallowfork bunch —”

Idaho used every unsavory epithet he could lay a foul tongue to and Grete took it, hearing not the obscenity but the tortured cry of a soul on the rack. It might have been his past self to which Grete was listening, understanding at last how negligible had been the difference between them, discovering how many of the same wrong turns he’d known as intimately as Idaho. Proximity to Sary had worked its change in each of them. The gunfighter knew that it had come, for him, too late.

“I’m going through with this,” Farraday said.

“By God, you can’t! That bunch hits us now the way this stock’s spread out — Christ, man, use your head! That kid might do what you tell him, but the rest of these tramps —”

“They can’t stand against the both of us.”

“I told you about that!”

“You’d let personal spite —”

“Jesus God, man! You think it’ll help that girl to lose everything she’s got? Those mares…”

The man’s bitter eyes, leaping past Grete, went pale and wide, sick as though a knife had chunked into him. “Quiet,” he growled. “She’s comin’.”

“Are you stopping here?” Sary asked, pulling up.

Grete with raised brows stared at Idaho.

The girl, plainly worried, looked at both of them, sensing tension. Idaho said, “Tell this fool to turn around!”

She considered Grete, her attention shifting to the gunfighter soberly. “I can’t do that. It was a part of our agreement he should give the orders —”

“He’s give ‘em, girl. Look where we’re at!”

A wind rushed down off the higher slopes and tugged at her shirtwaist, tumbling a lock of red hair across her cheek. She pushed it away, her eyes searching Grete.

He brought the dun up a step, trying to make out what lay behind this look, turned suddenly restless, not sure of anything. A deeper color crept into her cheeks and the lock of hair fanned across them again. He bent to catch a surer look, what he saw unsettling him badly. Idaho bawled in unbridled fury, “Get this drive turned around! You don’t owe him a thing!”

“Grete, tell me the truth. Do we have any chance?”

He observed the contempt on the gunfighter’s face and was still so long she put the question again.

There was a wicked gleam in Idaho’s stare, a kill-crazy hate glaring through the jealous rage that was destroying his control. Grete realized one further thing, that if it came to crossing guns with him the man would get his shot off first. Grete was also swayed by the look which the girl, without reservation, had so recently shown him. He fought his bitter thoughts, fought the cold paralysis settling over him. “Be pretty risky… but I believe we have.”

“Why, you damned hypothecator!” Idaho yelled. “All you want is to get even with that sonofabitch! She’s the one that takes the risk — you got nothin’ to lose but your miserable life!” His hand dropped and spread above the grip of his pistol.

“No!” Sary cried, ramming her horse in between them. Idaho had to use both hands to keep his rearing mount from going over. He clouted him viciously between the ears, laying into the horse with the butt of his quirt, hammering him down to a trembling stand.

He looked about ready to try it on Grete. “We can’t make no fight with this stock spread to hell an’ gone!”

“Nobody wants a fight,” Grete told Sary — “not here anyway, not now,” he said. He paid no attention to the gunfighter. In the man’s present mood Grete knew if they swapped glances there would be blood spilled. He saw the girl’s eyes change. “If we can keep them spread out, and if the crew —”

But Idaho had to work off his spleen. “If!” he jeered, bony face thrust toward Grete. “If wishes was horses you’d have ‘em all!” He spat and looked back at Sary. “I’d as soon go up against Geronimo’s Apaches as to brace Crotton’s bunch with their warpaint on! You listen to me —”

But she wanted to hear Grete. “You have a plan?”

“Well… not a plan exactly.” Grete took in a deep breath. “If we keep on like we’re going they’ll ride us down one at a time. If we bunch up they bag the lot of us. What it boils down to —”

“You want to give it up?” “It’s not that. I’m going on —” “Then let him go, an’ good riddance!” That was Idaho, swelled up like a toad.

“There’s a way,” Grete said. “If it works we get our ranch.”

“If there was a way,” the gunfighter snarled, “he’d of taken it. He’s workin’ up now to tell you we got to ditch the stock. By God, you turn ‘em loose it’s the last you’re goin’ to see of ‘em! Jesus God, ma’am, you let me —”

Sary spoke to Grete. “Do what you have to do. Never mind the mares — I never had any real right to them anyway. Ben got Tate’s money. I got the bills. The bank and the merchants teamed up and got a judgment.” Her eyes met Grete’s straightly. “I was pretty bitter. The night before the sheriff was due Ben suggested we grab the mares and clear out. At the time it seemed like a good idea.” She brushed the hair away again. “Go ahead and cut loose of them if —”

Idaho snapped. “Don’t talk like a fool! You earned them horses. You put up with plenty. Olds has told me all about Tate and what he done for that bastard — excusin’ your presence, ma’am. You got a right to anythin’ you can git outa this.” He glared malignantly at Grete. “I ain’t lettin’…”

He wasn’t reaching the girl. Her eyes were still on Farraday. The courage and pride and trust Grete saw in them made him feel mighty small. The gaunt one had a right to be riled. It made Grete sick to think how he had used this girl, looking out for his own, whip-sawing all of them, caring for nothing but his plans for smashing Crotton. For the first time he paused, actually stopping, to wonder if he ought to go on with this thing. But it was kind of a passing thought at best. They were deep into land claimed by Swallowfork now. Crotton — even if they wanted to — would never let them go. Sometimes a man could bluff, but not here. Crotton knew where they were; if not, he damned soon would know. They’d have to duck bullets every inch of the way. He said as much. Idaho cursed. “You git them mares —”