Twin Guns (3 page)

The lights of the bunkhouse across the big yard were nearly blotted out by great wet flakes of snow. What he could see of the ground and bunkhouse roof were already white. Winter had come to Wagon.

Hope this doesn't turn into an early blizzard, he thought. Doubt very much if anyone is ready for a howler this early. He shivered and returned to the warmth of his bed.

The sound of the triangle ringing in front of the cookhouse awakened him next morning, bringing him reluctantly from troubled sleep… from dreams that even now seemed almost real. He had dreamed of talking to Muddy about the weather… had fished with Bill at the big bend in the Clear, had once again held Jen in his arms. He tried to sleep again to shut out the misery. Failing, he went to the window and looked out into a day as gray and dismal as his thoughts. Sometime during the night the snow had stopped, but ground and buildings held nearly an inch of white stuff. Low, puffy clouds looked as if they might open and spill their contents again at any moment. Thank goodness there's no wind, he thought. He watched smoke rising straight up from the bunkhouse chimney.

Taking clean clothes from the closet he hurried to the warmth of the kitchen. Maria, cook and housekeeper since Wagon was started, turned golden brown pancakes in an iron skillet. He hurried into his clothes, unabashed at dressing before the old woman. After all, she had been the first to dress him and Bill in three-cornered pants.

Gruffly she greeted him. "You take cold last night?" she asked. "Your clothes not dry yet. You want I should fix…?"

He quickly interrupted the question. "No, Maria, I don't need any cold remedy." He shuddered at the thought of the taste of her homemade prescription for everything from stomachache to burned fingers. "Fix me a couple of eggs to go with those pancakes, and I think I'll live." His boots were not dry yet, and he went back to his room for another pair.

He was finishing his third cup of coffee when Josh Steuben, his foreman, stamped the snow off his boots and pushed open the kitchen door.

"Mornin', Kirby," he said, shrugging out of his coat. He took the coffee Maria poured for him and joined Kirby at the table. "Looks like summer is over," he said.

"Sure does," Kirby agreed. Josh is beginning to show his age, he thought. He watched, knowing regret, as his segundo's work-stiffened fingers closed gratefully about the hot coffee cup. Another good thing coming to an end. Wagon wouldn't be the same without Josh as ramrod.

"What's new this morning?" he asked.

"Nothing but the snow," replied Josh. "Sent a crew out early to drive the critters down from the east ridges. Rather they'd be closer to headquarters if we do have to haul hay. Don't rightly know what the weather's going to do."

"Pretty early for a blizzard, but you never can tell in this country," Kirby agreed. "You going out?"

He shook his head. "Waitin' for you," he said. "Held Curly and Ringo in, too. The Clear's risin' fast, Boss. Up a foot since first light. Must have been a whale of a rain up in the hills."

Kirby smiled to himself at the foreman's choice of words. Only a little while ago he had called him boy or, on occasion, that danged kid. He waited for Josh to go on.

"There's a jag of beef down in the west bottom," he said. "If the river gets much higher, they'll be cut off. Thought maybe you'd want to ride down with us to take a look."

Kirby knew a glow of pleasure at the words. He knew he wasn't needed. Josh would decide what to do with the cows anyway. The foreman was using the situation as an excuse to get Kirby to ride with them.

"Be with you as soon as I get a coat," he replied. "Have Curly or Ringo saddle the black stud. Haven't forked him in more than a week."

Josh's weather-beaten grin was sheepish. "Already have," he admitted.

The snow had begun to melt by the time the four riders hit the river trail, making the going slippery. Kirby and Josh dropped far behind Curly and Ringo to avoid the mud thrown up by their horses' sliding feet. Kirby knew that Josh had something on his mind… that he wanted to talk to him alone. He waited for his oldest friend to break the silence.

At last Josh cleared his throat and asked awkwardly, "What happened in Streeter last night, Boss? I was some worried before you rode in."

Kirby told him. The planes in Josh's angular face grew more and more pronounced as he heard about the whole affair, with the exception of his conversation with Jen.

"Glad Muddy wasn't here to see it," he said at last. "Do you think Bill was bluffing?"

"That I don't know. Can't seem to figure him, he's changed so much. Can't figure either, where he thought to get the cash to buy Wagon, but he talked like a man with the money in his fist."

"There's talk about that, Boss. Maybe you heard some of it."

"About Bill's money," Josh told him. "He made a big deposit in the Streeter bank and another one in Galeyville. Said he got it when he sold some of his herd. Said he was goin' to sell out everything and restock with shorthorns. Big talk, blooded cattle and all." He paused thoughtfully. "Something's wrong, though. We know how many cows he got when Muddy divided Wagon. Hardly enough to account for the size of them deposits… seein' as how he's got a lot of cows left over."

Kirby felt cold fingers up and down his spine at the foreman's words.

"Where do you figure he got it?" he asked.

Josh took off his battered Stetson and scratched his head. "Well, boy, I hate to say it, but there's a heap of talk that cows missing from other brands could sort of get mixed up with the stuff Bill rebranded when he changed over from Wagon to Lazy B. He was in an all-fired hurry to get his new iron on the critters Muddy gave him. Now folks are wondering if missing Triangle, Rocking R, Acorn and other brands weren't with the stuff Bill sold and shipped out."

"My gosh!" Kirby got out in a gasp. "Josh, that's the same thing as rustling. My own brother. Surely no son of Muddy's could stoop so low. Josh, if it's true, I'll go across the Clear and gun him down like a yellow dog."

"Take it easy, boy. No one has made any charges. Maybe no one will. He could have gotten the money some other way. You know how people are: they add two and two and sometimes get six for an answer."

Kirby seized on Josh's words gratefully. "Give the devil his due. There are some things that don't really add up. For one, his crew would know about anything crooked. Would they stand for it? And how did other brands get mixed in without someone driving them in?"

"There are angles," Josh agreed. "But let's look at it like other men do. Four of the boys who went with Bill when Wagon broke up come askin' me for their jobs back. Wouldn't say why… just that they'd made a mistake. The crew Bill's got now are almost every one strangers to Streeter country. He's even hired some fancy guns… you seemed to bump into one of 'em last night."

"Maybe I'm talkin' too much, but we may as well look at this thing, since we've got it out in the open. Bill has been seen a lot lately with Hub Dawes. You know him; runs a small outfit up in the hills. Cowmen have been suspicious of Dawes for a long time, but no one ever tried to prove he was actually stealing. Anyhow, the Lazy B joins Dawes' spread in some pretty rough country. It would be easy to hold a bunch of stolen stuff in the hills, and then at the right time run 'em in with Lazy B critters; say about rebranding time. Before anyone could get suspicious, that part of the herd could be sold." Josh paused and looked at Kirby's drawn face. Taking a deep breath, he went on:

"Don't believe anyone has been curious, but they will be. Dawes has been flashin' a lot of money in poker games at the Nugget. Where'd he get it? The time may come when he'll have to answer some questions. I only hope Bill isn't mixed up in the answers."

Kirby felt sick. If Bill had actually sold stolen cows, even if he hadn't run them up the trail on a rainy night, the end result was the same. He was as guilty as if he had been caught with a running iron in his hand. If he was guilty, then there could be but one end. Sooner or later he would be taken. There would be a high limb, a tight rope, and the name of Street would be dragged in the dust of the range where it had always meant all that was fine and honorable.

There was nothing more he could say, and Josh, as if dismayed at the effect of his words, fell silent. At that moment Curly appeared, riding toward them on the trail. He was breathless with excitement.

"Josh," he yelled as soon as he got within hearing distance, "Mr. Street, our cows have plumb disappeared." He slid his horse to a stop in the mud.

"Gone," echoed Kirby and Josh together. "What do you mean?"

"I mean the critters has vamoosed. We went clean to the head of the flat, and there ain't a cow to be seen. And no tracks, either."

"How many head in the bunch?" Kirby asked the foreman.

"Two twenty-five, two hundred fifty head maybe. They just took to the hills. We'll find 'em scattered to hell-an'-gone."

"Wanta bet?" asked Curly. "I've been hazin' mossy horns all my life. When cows move they leave tracks. If this bunch took to the hills, they took wings and flew. Ask Ringo."

An hour later Kirby and his ramrod had to admit that Curly was right. There was plenty of sign that the cows had been grazing on the flat. But they searched all three sides of the rectangular meadow and found nothing more than the old tracks of an occasional stray. No herd of cows had left the flat. There was only one answer… the river.

"When was the last time you checked this bunch?" Kirby asked.

Curly answered, " 'Bout a week ago, Ringo and me brought up a couple blocks of salt."

Kirby thought a moment. "Josh, I seem to remember that the Clear shallows down about here. Didn't we use this as a ford a few years back?"

"Yeah. In normal times the river ain't deeper than a cow's shoulder, except maybe in holes. Your Dad used to ford here regular. Put a whole trail herd through oncet."

"Wish we could cross and look for sign on the other bank."

The four studied the muddy, churning stream. The Clear was rising to a height none ever remembered seeing this late in the season. Driftwood bobbed along in sucking whirlpools. Once they watched a dead cow go by, mute evidence of the extent of the cloudburst upstream. A normally quiet river, the Clear had begun to chuckle and grumble with the unaccustomed weight it carried.

Josh asked the question: "Did any of you ever know a steer to take to water without someone beatin' his rump with a lass rope? When our bunch crossed they weren't goin' for a swim… they was hazed across." A spasm of anger crossed his face. "There ain't but one answer. We been rustled. And I mean to see the skunks responsible twistin' at the end of a rope if it's my last act. Wagon is big, but not big enough to take that kind of loss… and not layin' down, neither."

Ringo had his say. "Me and Curly heard talk in the Nugget that rustlers were busy, but we never thought they'd hit Wagon. Me, I'm gonna start ridin' with a saddle gun."

Curly agreed. "I was just thinking that. And they sure got a break from the weather. Time the river goes down, there ain't goin' to be a cow track in ten miles. And unless I miss my guess, any tracks on high ground are goin' to be buried under a heap of snow by tonight."

Even as he spoke, great white flakes of snow began to flatten against their faces. In a little while the flakes were only half as big but increasing in intensity. The first real snowstorm of the year broke from clouds so low that it seemed a man could stand in his stirrups and touch them.

Josh was frankly concerned. "Let's ride, men. Can't hardly see the trail now, and ain't none of us dressed for a spell out here if this turns into a norther."

They made it in the nick of time. As the outlines of the pole corral loomed before them, the wind began to shriek with the wild, fierce keening of a real blizzard.

They unsaddled in the shelter of the barn. Josh counted saddles on the rack. "Mighty glad everyone's in. Sure hate to think of any of 'em bein' caught out in this. Hope they got everything down in the bottoms before this started. I'll go find out." He started for the bunkhouse, barely visible through the whirling whiteness. Kirby stopped him at the barn door. Shouting above the wind's roar, he called, "Better have a couple of boys put up some safety rope. Probably need them to get around by morning. And if you can make it, come up to the house for chuck."

Josh nodded and, tucking his hat into the front of his coat, ran for the bunkhouse. He fought the wind, quartering toward his objective as if swimming against a heavy current. The two punchers flipped a hand and followed their foreman.

When Kirby stepped into the force of the gale he knew panic as the icy wind took his breath, felt himself being lifted from the ground. He grabbed for the top fence rail and followed it as far as he could. Gathering all his strength, he dashed for the house. As he ran he remembered the stories, all too true, of men caught within a few feet of their doorsteps, unable to make safety. He hurtled into the side of the house with such force that he was knocked back. Edging along the wall, step by step, he made for the door. He felt panic again as he realized that he should have reached it. I've lost my sense of direction, he thought. Spread-eagled against the house, he retraced his steps and knew sick relief when he caught a glimmer of light from the kitchen door.

It took all his strength to hold the door as he opened it and attempted to slide through as small a crack as possible. Snow flurried into the room, and the cook range roared with the furious draft. Maria threw her vast bulk against the wood, and they got it closed.

"I was gettin' awful worried, boy," she told him anxiously. "If you hadn't come soon, Manuel was going to rope himself to the house and make a run for the bunkhouse to see if you were there. Is everyone in?"

"Reckon all the boys are in, Maria. What's for supper?" He sniffed the steamy fragrance in the big kitchen. "As if I cared, long as you cooked it." He caught her in a big hug just as Manuel came into the room.

"Caught, by golly," he groaned. "Go ahead and shoot, Manuel. I'll admit I was hugging your wife." He bowed his head. "I'll take it like a man."