The big range, p.3
The Big Range, page 3
“You’ve saved me some miles,” Kern said. “I was heading for your place.”
Rodock raised his eyebrows and looked at him and was silent. I kept my mouth shut. Claggett, who probably knew as much about the mares as I did by now, did the same. This was Rodock’s game.
“Not saying much, are you?” Kern said. He saw the Henrys. “Got your war paint on too. I thought something would be doing from what I’ve been hearing about things at your place. What’s on your mind this time?”
“My mind’s my own,” Rodock said. “But it could be we’re off on a little camping trip.”
“And again it couldn’t,” Kern said. “Only camping you ever do is on the tail of a horse thief. That’s the trouble. Twice now you’ve ridden in to tell me where to find them swinging. Evidence was clear enough, so there wasn’t much I could do. But you’re too damn free with your rope. How we going to get decent law around here with you old timers crossing things up? This time, if it is a this time, you’re doing it right and turn them over to me. We’ll just ride along to see that you do it.”
Rodock turned to me. He had that grim and enduring look and the lines by his mouth were taut. “Break out those packs, boy. We’re camping right here.” I saw what he was figuring and I dismounted and began unfastening the packs. I had them on the ground and was fussing with the knots when Kern spoke.
“You’re a stubborn old devil,” he said. “You’d stay right here and outwit us.”
“I would,” Rodock said.
“All right,” Kern said. “We’ll fade. But I’ve warned you. If it’s rustlers you’re after, bring them to me.”
Rodock didn’t say a thing and I heaved the packs on the horse again, and by time I had them fastened tight, Kern and his men were a distance away and throwing dust. We started on, and by dark we had gone a good piece. By dark the next day we had made a big half-circle and were well into the hills. About noon of the next, we were close enough to the canyon where we had found the mares, say two miles if you could have hopped it straight. Claggett and I waited while Rodock scouted around. He came back and led us up a twisting rocky draw to a small park hemmed in part way by a fifteen-foot rock shelf and the rest of the way by a close stand of pine. It was about a half-acre in size, and you’d never know it was there unless you came along the draw and stumbled into it. We picketed the horses there and headed for the canyon on foot, moving slow and cautious as we came close. When we peered over the rim, the herd was there all right, the foals beginning to get some growth and the mares stepping a lot easier than before. They were used to the place now and not interested in leaving. They had taken to ranging pretty far up the canyon, but we managed to sight the whole count after a few minutes’ watching.
We searched along the rim for the right spot and found it, a crack in the rim wide enough for a man to ease into comfortably and be off the skyline for anyone looking from below, yet able to see the whole stretch where the herd was. To make it even better, we hauled a few rocks to the edge of the opening and piled brush with them, leaving a careful spy-hole. The idea was that one of us could sit there watching while the other two holed in a natural hiding-place some fifty feet back under an overhanging ledge with a good screen of brush. The signal, if anything happened, was to be a pebble chucked back towards the hiding-place.
I thought we’d take turns watching, but Rodock settled on that flat-top stone and froze there. Claggett and I kept each other company under the ledge, if you could call it keeping company when one person spent most of the time with his mouth shut whittling endless shavings off chunks of old wood or taking naps. That man Claggett had no nerves. He could keep his knife going for an hour at a time without missing a stroke or stretch out and drop off into a nap like we were just lazing around at the ranch. He didn’t seem to have much personal interest in what might develop. He was just doing a job and tagging along with an old-time partner. As I said before, he didn’t have a real feel for horses. I guess to be fair to him I ought to remember that he hadn’t seen those mares with their hooves rasped to the quick and flinching and shuddering with every step they took. Me, I was strung like a too-tight fiddle. I’d have cracked sure if I hadn’t had the sense to bring a deck in my pocket for solitaire. I nearly wore out those cards and even took to cheating to win, and it seemed to me we were cooped there for weeks when it was only five days. And all the time, every day, Rodock sat on that stone as if he was a piece of it, getting older and grayer and grimmer.
Nights we spent back with the horses. We’d be moving before dawn each morning, eating a heavy breakfast cooked over a small quick fire, then slipping out to our places with the first streaks of light carrying a cold snack in our pockets. We’d return after dark for another quick meal and roll right afterwards into our blankets. You’d think we hardly knew each other the way we behaved, only speaking when that was necessary. Claggett was never much of a talker, and Rodock was tied so tight in himself now he didn’t have a word to spare. I kept quiet because I didn’t want him smacking my age at me again. If he could chew his lips and wear out the hours waiting, I could too, and I did.
We were well into the fifth day and I was about convinced nothing would ever happen again, any time ever anywhere in the whole wide world, when a pebble came snicking through the brush and Rodock came hard after it, ducking low and hurrying.
“They’re here,” he said. “All three.” And I noticed the fierce little specks of light beginning to burn in his eyes. “They’re stringing rope to trees for a corral. Probably planning to brand here, then run.” He looked at me and I could see him assessing me and dismissing me, and he turned to Claggett. “Hugh,” he started to say, “I want you to—”
I guess it was the way he had looked at me and the things he had said about my age. Anyway, I was mad. I didn’t know what he was going to say, but I knew he had passed me by. I grabbed him by the arm.
“Mister Rodock,” I said, “I’m the one rode with you after those mares.”
He stared at me and shook his head a little as if to clear it.
“All right, boy,” he said. “You do this and, by God, you do it right. Hurry back and get your horse and swing around and come riding into the canyon. Far as I can tell at the distance, these men are strangers, so there’s not much chance they’d know you worked for me. You’re just a drifter riding through. Keep them talking so Hugh and I can get down behind them. If they start something, keep them occupied long as you can.” He grabbed me by the shoulders the way he had when we found the mares. “Any shooting you do, shoot to miss. I want them alive.” He let go of me. “Now scat.”
I scatted. I never went so fast over rough country on my own feet in my life. When I reached the roan, I had to hang on to his neck to get some breath and my strength back. I slapped my saddle on and took him at a good clip, but not too much to put him in a lather. I was heading into the canyon, pulling him to an easy trot, when it hit me, what a damn fool thing I was doing. There were three of them in there, three mighty smart men with a lot of nerve, and they had put a lot of time and waiting into this job and wouldn’t likely be wanting to take chances on its going wrong. I was scared, so scared I could hardly sit the roan, and I came near swinging him around and putting my heels to him. Maybe I would have. Maybe I would have run out on those mares. But then I saw that one of the men had spotted me and there was nothing much to do but keep going towards them.
The one that had spotted me was out a ways from the others as a lookout. He had a rifle and he swung it to cover me as I came near and I stopped the roan. He was a hardcase specimen if ever I saw one and I didn’t like the way he looked at me.
“Hold it now, sonny,” he said. “Throw down your guns.”
I was glad he said that, said “sonny,” I mean, because it sort of stiffened me and I wasn’t quite so scared, being taken up some with being mad. I tried to act surprised and hold my voice easy.
“Lookahere,” I said, “that’s an unfriendly way to talk to a stranger riding through. I wouldn’t think of using these guns unless somebody pushed me into it, but I’d feel kind of naked without them. Let’s just leave them alone, and if you’re not the boss, suppose you let me talk to him that is.”
I figured he wouldn’t shoot because they’d want to know was I alone and what was I doing around there, and I was right. He jerked his head towards the other two.
“Move along, sonny,” he said. “But slow. And keep your hands high in sight. I’ll blast you out of that saddle if you wiggle a finger.”
I walked the roan close to the other two and he followed behind me and circled around me to stand with them. They had been starting a fire and had stopped to stare at me coming. One was a short, stocky man, almost bald, with a fringe of grizzled beard down his cheeks and around his chin. The other was about medium height and slender, with clean chiseled features and a pair of the hardest, shrewdest, bluest eyes I ever saw. It was plain he was the boss by the way he took over. He set those eyes on me and I started shivering inside again.
“I’ve no time to waste on you,” he said. “Make it quick. What’s your story?”
“Story?” I said. “Why, simple enough. I’m footloose and roaming for some months and I get up this way with my pockets about played out. I’m riding by and I see something happening in here and I drop in to ask a few questions.”
“Questions?” he said, pushing his head forward at me. “What kind of questions?”
“Why,” I said, “I’m wondering maybe you can tell me, if I push on through these hills do I come to a town or some place where maybe I can get a job?”
The three of them stood there staring at me, chewing on this, and I sat in my saddle staring back, when the bearded man suddenly spoke.
“I ain’t sure,” he said, looking at the roan. “But maybe that’s a Rodock horse.”
I saw them start to move and I dove sideways off the roan, planning to streak for the brush, and a bullet from the rifle went whipping over the saddle where I’d been, and I hadn’t more than bounced the first time when a voice like a chill wind struck the three of them still. “Hold it, and don’t move!”
I scrambled up and saw them stiff and frozen, slowly swiveling their necks to look behind them at Rodock and Hugh Claggett and the wicked ready muzzles of their two Henrys.
“Reach,” Rodock said, and they reached. “All right, boy,” he said. “Strip them down.”
I cleaned them thoroughly and got, in addition to the rifle and the usual revolvers, two knives from the bearded man and a small but deadly derringer from an inside pocket of the slender man’s jacket.
“Got everything?” Rodock said. “Then hobble them good.”
I did this just as thoroughly, tying their ankles with about a two-foot stretch between so they could walk short-stepped, but not run, and tying their wrists together behind their backs with a loop up and around their necks and down again so that if they tried yanking or pulling they’d be rough on their own Adam’s apples.
They didn’t like any of this. The slender man didn’t say a word, just clamped his mouth and talked hate with his eyes, but the other two started cursing.
“Shut up,” Rodock said, “or we’ll ram gags down your throats.” They shut up, and Rodock motioned to me to set them in a row on the ground leaning against a fallen tree and he hunkered down himself facing them with his Henry across his lap. “Hugh,” he said, without looking away from them, “take down those ropes they’ve been running and bring their horses and any of their stuff you find over here. Ought to be some interesting branding irons about.” He took off his hat and set it on the ground beside him. “Hop your horse, boy,” he said; “get over to our hideout and bring everything back here.”
When I returned leading our other horses, the three of them were still right in a row leaning against the log and Rodock was still squatted on the ground looking at them. Maybe words had been passing. I wouldn’t know. Anyway, they were all quiet then. The hardcase was staring at his own feet. The bearded man’s eyes were roaming around and he had a sick look on his face. The slender man was staring right back at Rodock and his mouth was only a thin line in his face. Claggett was standing to one side fussing with a rope. I saw he was fixing a hangman’s knot on it and had two others already finished and coiled at his feet. When I saw them I had a funny empty feeling under my belt and I didn’t know why. I had seen a hanging before and never felt like that I guess I had some kind of a queer notion that just hanging those three wouldn’t finish the whole thing right. It wouldn’t stop me waking at night and thinking about those mares and their crippled hooves.
My coming seemed to break the silence that had a grip on the whole place. The slender man drew back his lips and spit words at Rodock.
“Quit playing games,” he said. “Get this over with. We know your reputation.”
“Do you?” Rodock said. He stood up and waggled each foot in turn to get the kinks out of his legs. He turned and saw what Claggett was doing and a strange little mirthless chuckle sounded in his throat. “You’re wasting your time, Hugh,” he said. “We won’t be using those. I’m taking these three in.”
Claggett’s jaw dropped and his mouth showed open. I guess he was seeing an old familiar pattern broken and he didn’t know how to take it. I wasn’t and I had caught something in Rodock’s tone. I couldn’t have said what it was, but it was sending tingles through my hair roots.
“Don’t argue with me, Hugh,” Rodock said. “My mind’s set. You take some of the food and start hazing the herd towards home. They can do it now if you take them by easy stages. The boy and I’ll take these three in.”
I helped Claggett get ready and watched him go up the canyon to bunch the herd and get it moving. I turned to Rodock and he was staring down the back trail.
“Think you could handle four horses on lead ropes, boy?” he said. “The packhorse and their three.”
“Expect I could, strung out,” I said. “But why not split them? You take two and I take two.”
“I’ll be doing something else,” he said, and that same little cold chuckle sounded in his throat. “How far do you make it, boy, to the settlement and Kern’s office?”
“Straight to it,” I said, “I make it close to fifty mile.”
“About right,” he said. “Kind of a long hike for those used to having horses under them. Hop over and take the hobbles off their feet.”
I hopped, but not very fast. I was feeling some disappointed. I was feeling that he was letting me and those mares down. A fifty-mile hike for those three would worry them plenty, and they’d be worrying too, about what would come at the end of it. Still it was a disappointment to think about
“While you’re there,” Rodock said, “pull their boots off too.”
I swung to look at him. He was a big man, as I said before, but I’d run across others that stood taller and filled a doorway more, but right then he was the biggest man I ever saw anywhere any time in my whole life.
I didn’t bother to take off the hobbles. I left them tied so they’d hold the boots together in pairs and I could hand them flapping over the back of the packhorse. I pulled the boots off, not trying to be gentle, just yanking, and I had a little trouble with the hardcase. He tried to kick me, so I heaved on the rope between his ankles and he came sliding out from the log flat on his back and roughing his bound hands under him, and after that he didn’t try anything more. But what I remember best about the three of them then is the yellow of the socks the slender man wore. Those on the others were the usual dark gray, but his were bright yellow. I’ve thought about them lots of times and never been able to figure why and where he ever got them.
Rodock was rummaging in their stuff that Claggett had collected. He tossed a couple of branding irons towards me. “Bring these along,” he said. “Maybe Kern will be interested in them.” He picked up a whip, an old but serviceable one with a ten-foot lash, and tested it with a sharp crack. “Get up,” he said to the three, and they got up. “I’ll be right behind you with this. You’ll stay bunched and step right along. Start walking.”
They started, and he tucked his Henry in his saddle scabbard and swung up on the bay.
By time I had the other horses pegged in a line with the packhorse as an anchor at the end and was ready to follow, they were heading out of the canyon and I hurried to catch up. I had to get out of the way, too, because Claggett had the herd gathered and was beginning to push the mares along with the foals skittering around through the bushes. Anyone standing on the canyon edge looking down would have seen a queer sight, maybe the damndest procession that ever paraded through that lonesome country. Those three were out in front, walking and putting their feet down careful even in the grass to avoid pebbles and bits of deadwood, with Rodock big and straight on his bay behind them, then me with my string of three saddled but riderless horses and the packhorse, and behind us all the mares and the skittering foals with Claggett weaving on his sorrel to keep the stragglers on the move.
Once out of the canyon we had to separate. Rodock and I and our charges turned south-east to head for the settlement. Claggett had to swing the herd towards the north-east to head for the home range. He had his trouble with the mares because they wanted to follow me and my string. But he and his sorrel knew their business and by hard work made the break and held it. I guess he was a bit huffy about the whole thing because I waved when the distance was getting long between us, and he saw me wave and didn’t even raise an arm. I don’t know as I blame him for that.
This was mid-afternoon and by camping time we had gone maybe ten miles and had shaken down to a steady grind. My horses had bothered the roan some by holding back on the rope and had bothered themselves a few times by spread-eagling and trying to go in different directions, but by now the idea had soaked in and they were plugging along single-file and holding their places. The three men out in front had learned to keep moving or feel the whip. The slender man stepped along without paying attention to the other two and never looked back at Rodock and never said a word. The bearded man had found that shouting and cursing simply wore out his throat and had no effect on the grim figure pacing behind them. The hardcase had tried a break, ducking quick to one side and running fast as he could, but Rodock had jumped the bay and headed him the same as you do a steer, and being awkward with his hands tied he had taken a nasty tumble. Not a one of them was going to try that again. Their feet were too tender for hard running, anyway, especially out there in the open where the grass was bunchy with bare spaces aplenty, and there were stretches with a kind of coarse gravel underfoot. When Rodock called a halt by water, they were ready to flop on the ground immediately and hitch around and dabble their feet in the stream, and I noticed that the bottoms of their socks were about gone and the soles of their feet were red where they showed in splotches through the dirt ground in. I enjoyed those ten miles, not with a feeling of fun, but with a sort of slow, steady satisfaction.
