Wanderlust Creek and Other Stories (20 page)

Gloria was silent; she watched him cinch the
saddle girths up tight and buckle them and slip the bridle over the
horse’s head. A little unreasoning worry flickered inside her—she
wanted to say something to him, but without sounding too wretchedly
timid or doubting.

As he led the horse from the stall, she
said, “Ray, don’t do anything that—well—be careful.”

“There’s nothing to worry about,” said Ray,
turning to look down on her. He laid his hand on her shoulder and
kissed her, and brushed her chin gently with his thumb. “We’ll talk
more when I get back…all right?”

Gloria nodded, smiling faintly. She followed
him out as he led the horse from the barn and stood in the doorway
to watch him swing up in the saddle: a swift, assured motion, his
face set and expressionless in a way that she knew masked anything
but a lack of purpose. He swung the brown horse’s head around and
headed off, angling west across the prairie toward the juncture of
fence and creek.

* * *

It was just as Chris had said. A dozen yards
from where Collins’ fence crossed the creek to run along the far
side and divide it from McDonough’s range, a section of fence was
down between two posts, and scattered through the brush on the near
side were some twenty head of cattle wearing the McDonough brand.
There were no cowboys in sight. Overhead an uneasy shifting wind
whistled through the tips of the tree branches, and the surface of
the shallow creek shuddered as if in fear at the wind’s touch. Ray
sat on his horse for a moment and looked at the scene, and then
touched his heel to the brown’s side and the horse splashed through
the creek, up through the gap in the fence and on toward
McDonough’s ranch.

Color broke out across the prairie again as
Ray rode west, the creek twisting across McDonough’s land on his
right. The rain had cleared off by now, pushed by the swirling
wind, and the late-afternoon sun spilled through the cracks in the
dark-gray clouds, turning Wanderlust Creek into a rainbow silk
ribbon ruffled by the gusts. The mouse-colored grass lay heavy, too
damp to blow, but a gust of deceptive strength jumped suddenly
forward, snapped and blew at Ray’s coat and tugged on the brim of
his hat. He looked at the glowing creek and the gold-streaming sky,
but he could not think about the wet nor the color nor the wind,
with the pattern of anger repeating itself steadily in his mind. So
McDonough had decided to take what he wanted. If that was the way
he meant to play, Ray was not going to back off from the challenge.
He’d let him know that. He was the equal of any man in the work and
brains and expense he had put into ownership of that three hundred
and twenty acres, and was not about to be pushed from it by the
weight of another man’s owning more.

In a little while he came across open
prairie to the McDonough home ranch. A group of sod buildings
against a web of gray-sided livestock sheds and pole
corrals—bunkhouse, cook shack and a small plank-sided frame house
that seemed to lean with the wind, gray as the sheds, that was the
rancher’s living quarters. Ray turned off here, dismounted and went
up two creaking steps to a door that stood open. He rapped sharply
on it, back-handed, and stepped in.

McDonough was sitting at a table by the
left-hand wall in the sparsely-furnished room; the light from the
west fell over his broad shoulders from the window behind him as he
looked up at Ray’s entrance. A look of inquiry crossed his face,
but he did not speak. Ray gave him no chance.

He crossed to the table in a few sharp,
measured steps and stopped. “I didn’t think you’d take this way,”
he said. “I guess I rated you too high. But it’s not going to do
you any good.”

“What are you talking about?” said
McDonough, putting himself back a little from the table with one
hand.

“You know what I’m talking about,” said Ray,
anger flaring into his voice, though he raised it no louder. “Don’t
waste my time with that. I came to tell you I’m wise to it and
you’d better quit right now. Pull those cattle out of there and
don’t try it again.”

“You hold it for one bleeding second,
Collins,” said McDonough, rising out of his chair, “and talk plain
English. What’s all this about?”

This time Ray’s voice cracked sharp and loud
in the room. “The cattle you’re watering on the wrong side of my
fence. I didn’t think you’d sink that low just because I wouldn’t
sell out. I had you wrong.”

“You’re accusing me of cutting your fences
to water at your end of the creek?”

“You’re denying it?”

“You’re dad-blamed right I’m denying it!”
said McDonough, almost as incensed. “I don’t know where you get the
nerve to come blazing in here and throw an accusation like that in
my face, but if you make a habit out of acting this way you’re
going to land yourself in trouble.”

Ray fell back a step and stared at him, eyes
smoldering. “All right,” he said. “If that’s the way you want
it—But I’m not going to take it lying down. All I’ve got to say to
you is, you’d better keep your boys out of rifle-shot of my fences
if they want to stay healthy.”

He turned on his heel and stalked out.
McDonough took an angry step around the table and started to say
something, but Ray was already gone. He flung out of the house,
banging the open door back against the wall so it rebounded
vibrating on its hinges, and was in the saddle and away before
McDonough got anywhere near the doorway.

* * *

Gloria met him outside when he pulled up in
front of the shanty—she had been listening for him and was through
the door in a second at sound of his horse’s hooves. “Well?” she
said.

“They’re there all right,” said Ray. “I went
through that way first to see. Fence is cut just south of where it
crosses the creek, and there’s twenty or so head of McDonough
cattle in the brush on our side.”

“And what did he say? McDonough, I mean. Did
you see him?”

“Saw him at his place,” said Ray. He brushed
past her into the house, and Gloria followed him; an odd unease at
his manner and what he was doing clung round her so she could not
shake it off. “He denied it flat; wouldn’t let on he knew anything
about it.”

“Couldn’t he have been right? I mean, if
he—”

Ray had the Winchester in his hands; he slid
it partway out of the scabbard to check the cartridge chamber.
“Chris said he gave the order. I’ve got no reason to doubt Chris’s
word and I’ve got no reason to trust McDonough.”

He slammed the rifle home in the leather
scabbard and turned toward the door. Gloria’s eyes flicked from the
gun in his hands back to his face. “What are you going to do
now?”

“I’m going to drive those cattle out, and
fix the fence,” he said, “and stay up there and guard it. After
that—well, I’ll take it as it comes.”

Gloria took a little running step to keep up
with him as he strode back to his waiting horse. “Ray, why not wait
till morning. Maybe you could get Sheriff Kinney out here, and see
if he could do something.”

“Kinney’s no help. He’s already sour against
me; the only one he really listens to is McDonough.”

Gloria was silent a minute. “Ray, let me go
with you.”

Ray was fastening the scabbard on his
saddle. He shook his head, and looked at her. “Not this time. I’m
going to be up there all night. You stay here and get some
sleep.”

“But you’ll need help with the fence. I’d
rather come, Ray—”

“Glorie.” Behind the soothing in his tone
was a firmness she knew. “Stay here tonight, and then in the
morning you can bring me out something to eat, and we’ll talk about
what to do next. I’ll be somewhere near where our fence crosses the
creek.”

“All right,” said Gloria, a small reluctance
still pulling at her words. She watched him gather up the reins and
turn toward the horse to mount. “What about supper? Don’t you want
any?”

“I’m not hungry now,” said Ray. He glanced
at her, and paused, and then he turned from the horse and put his
hand behind her head and pulled it to his shoulder for a second.
“Quit worrying,” he said softly in her ear.

He released her, and once more Gloria stood
back and watched him put his foot in the stirrup and mount, and
wheel his horse out around the shanty and the garden patch toward
the northwest and the creek.

* * *

The sun’s fading rays were slanting
shallower, deeper gold; the wind had died down to a mere muted
stirring in the brush when Ray reached the creek. The water
glimmered in broken sparks through the branches, but indistinct
shadows, forerunners of dusk, were beginning to gather in the
deeper recesses of the bushes. Ray’s horse waded ankle-deep through
the water and hitched himself up the shallow bank on the other
side.

Ray felt calmer and more resolved now; for a
few steps ahead of him at least he knew exactly what he was going
to do and knew that he could do it. He would drive the cattle back
through the gap, splice and secure the cut wire—

Ray stopped his horse, staring down with a
bewildered frown. The scene was different from when he had last
seen it. Along the line of trampled wet grass the fence stood
straight and tight; the wires had been stapled to the posts. There
was no break. But still browsing in the screen of brush on the near
side of the fence were cattle wearing the McDonough brand.

Ray swung down and approached the fence,
looking it over in half-suspicious puzzlement. He noticed for the
first time that the wires had not been cut in the middle, but
pulled loose from their posts, and now had been repaired at the
same juncture. It made no sense to him. What McDonough expected to
gain from it Ray had no idea, but he was not about to let it stand
in his way.

He took from his saddlebag the hammer he had
stopped at the barn to pick up, grasped the top wire and worked the
claw-end of the hammer under the first staple. He yanked the staple
loose, and the wire went curling back. Ray tossed the loose end out
of his way, and bent to reach the next staple. And at that moment
something struck him a heavy stunning blow on the back of the head,
and he fell forward into the wire fence.

* * *

As Gloria was slowly putting away the few
dishes from her solitary supper, she heard the horses. She glanced
over her shoulder from the cabinet and glimpsed the two riders
through the window. One of them was McDonough and the other was
Silas Kinney.

Gloria left the cabinet quickly and went to
the door. She pulled it open and stepped out, and stood on the
threshold waiting as they drew up, her eyes going uncompromisingly
from one to the other. She did not know what they wanted, but she
did not intend to give them an inch of ground until she did.

The muddy ground sucked at the horses’
hooves; they blew and snorted and Gloria could feel the after-storm
damp in the air that drifted her way. McDonough leaned from the
saddle a little. “Mrs. Collins, is your husband home? We want to
talk to him.”

“No, he isn’t,” said Gloria. “What is it
about? Perhaps I can help you.”

“No, I don’t know,” said McDonough, shaking
his head. He jerked a hand toward his companion. “Sheriff Kinney
here stopped by my place just after your husband left, and I
brought him over here to see if we couldn’t straighten out this
story about my crew supposedly cutting your fences. We want to talk
to your husband and get his side of it straight, and see if we
can’t put it to rest. Can you tell us where he is?”

Gloria thought for a moment, her eyes on
McDonough’s heavy-featured face. It was odd that she could be so
calm and considering in the face of the man Ray believed was taking
such advantage of them and had the assurance to baldly lie about
it. Perhaps he was telling the truth about this visit, or perhaps
he was just trying to get Kinney over onto his side. Either way,
confronting them both with the evidence as Ray had described it to
her would be the thing to do.

Kinney shifted restively and his saddle
creaked under him. Gloria made up her mind quickly—she was going to
be there to see it and to back Ray up if he needed her.

“I can take you to him,” she said. “If
you’ll give me a minute to change, I’ll be right with you.” She
turned back into the house without giving either of them a chance
to object, but paused in the doorway to add, with a glance from one
to the other, “If one of you could saddle my horse while you wait
it would save a good deal of time. The saddle is in the barn.”

She closed the door behind her, again
without waiting for a reply, but before she went through to the
bedroom she glanced out the window and saw McDonough beginning to
dismount. Kinney was still sitting in the saddle looking like a
white-haired molting crow, evidently annoyed at having to be here
at all. McDonough said something to him and went toward the
barn.

It gave Gloria an odd satisfaction, as she
flicked her riding-skirt down from its nail in the bedroom and
fumbled at the fastenings of her dress, to think of McDonough
saddling her horse and bringing it around for her. In matters of
courtesy at least she had the advantage of him, and that was one
small thing to grasp when everything else looked so uncertain.

* * *

A slow, dull ache in the back of his neck
was the first thing Ray became aware of. There were sounds of
movement somewhere near him, but even recognition of them was an
effort, as if he had to drag the thoughts from some far-distant
part of his brain.

A voice spoke, floating somewhere overhead.
“All right, give it to me…Over here.”

Another voice said something further off,
and there was a vague sound of trampling in the grass. “No, his
horse.”

Ray was trying to remember what was
happening to him. Wanderlust Creek rippling quietly in the
background; the dark shapes of cattle under the trees. Then it all
came back in a fragmented rush: McDonough, the cut fence, the
repaired fence—someone had struck him down from behind. He realized
gradually that his hands were tied behind his back. His mind still
seemed too far away from his body for him to try to move.