THE MAN WAS running.
He was escaping from danger, but there was no show of fear. He simply ran to stay alive, his short thick legs pumping, his booted feet raising the dust as they hammered him down the shallow valley.
He was traveling fast, but he didn’t stand a chance. Even as he swerved to the right and headed for the rocks, there came the clatter of horses’ hoofs behind him and two riders came into view, urging their horses forward with quirt and spur.
Within minutes they could have ridden him into the ground, shot him, done whatever they wished to him, for he was without a gun and their carbines were ready in their hands. They could have done as they wished if they reached him; but they didn’t reach him. When the leading rider, crouched over the flowing mane of his bay horse, was within twenty feet of him, the shot came.
It came from above and it passed in front of the rider. He turned his head, startled and began to slow his horse, but he didn’t do so fast enough apparently for the rifleman on the valley brink. Another shot came.
This one was decisive. The rider heaved his horse to a sliding halt. The man behind him reined in beside him and they gazed up at the drifting gunsmoke above them from wide eyes.
But their halting was not enough for the marksman either. Another shot came, ploughing up the dust at their feet. They got the message.
One man said: ‘Let’s git the hell outa here.’
They turned their animals and started back, and a fourth shot hurried them on their way. They didn’t look back. They knew when they were lucky to be alive. The man up in the rocks could have killed them had he wished.
The fleeing man stopped, turned and gazed after the two departed, grinned a little and sat on a small boulder to mop the sweat from his face with his bandanna.
He was a thickset man of a little below average height, no longer young, but not old either. A man in his prime, lacking the speed of youth, maybe, but at the height of his strength. And he was strong. He was clothed in a heavy jacket and cord pants, clothed for the upland chill, but that could not hide the muscularity of his powerful body. And the face matched the body. It had power and determination in every line of it; the face of a man who had his own way or would want to know why not. Yet it was not without humor. Even now his-eyes were bright and his mouth twitched with laughter. Those two sonsabitches thought they had him and they didn’t. That was real funny.
He slowly built a smoke, waiting for the man who had saved him to appear. His hands were thick and capable, the hands of a man who liked to use them.
When he heard the clatter of rocks from the opposite side of the valley, he lifted his eyes and saw a rider appear. He stayed still, till the man was up close so that he could inspect him.
He was a big man, riding tall in the saddle, sitting his saddle with a careless grace that came only with habitual riding. The face was dark and saturnine, almost the face of an Indian. The manner was easy, but the dark eyes were somber and watchful under the wide brim of the battered black hat. The clothes were those seen on the range—a blue shirt faded almost white, a greasy leather vest, long legs encased in shotgun chaps, scuffed boots were spurred with silver. The gun worn high on the hip was an old long-barreled Remington, the rifle in the saddle-boot that looked as though it were of Indian manufacture was a Henry repeater. The man was young, but he looked as if he had ridden a good few trails. The seated man reckoned a good few of those had been by moonlight.
If the man made a strong impression on him, the horse made a stronger one, because the seated man lived, breathed and dreamed horses and knew good horse-flesh when he saw it. Not that the animal in front of him was anything fancy. It was a little on the small size, but it was a genuine California canelo, just the right shade, just the right conformation. A horse that would run all day and be fresh for more. The rig, he noted, was Texan.
Without getting up, he said: ‘Who the hell’re you?’
The tall man looked at him quietly for a moment before replying.
He said: ‘I’m the feller who just saved your life.’
‘Why?’
‘I’da done the same for a dog.’
The thickset man stood up.
‘You expect me to be grateful?’
‘You can take a running jump and perform the impossible for all I care.’
The thickset man grinned suddenly and came forward with outstretched hand. The big man stepped down from the saddle unhurriedly and took the offered hand.
‘Thanks,’ the thickset man said. ‘Maybe you didn’t save my life. I doubt them bastards woulda killed me. But they sure woulda roughed me up some.’
‘You’re welcome.’
‘Prescott’s the name. Joe Prescott.’
The tall man nodded and said: ‘McAllister … Remington McAllister. You got a horse?’
‘Lost him a ways back. My gun too. A hell of a note. If folks hear this happened to me, they’ll die laughin’.’
McAllister grinned.
‘Then we best not tell ’em,’ he said. ‘I’ll ketch your horse.’ He turned the canelo and rode north up the valley. Within fifteen minutes he was back, leading Prescott’s sorrel gelding. When he dismounted he pulled a revolver from his belt and handed it to Prescott who looked at it in some surprise and said: ‘How the hell d’you find that?’
‘Backtrailed you.’
Prescott was impressed. He holstered the gun and swung aboard the sorrel. Turning in the saddle, he asked: ‘Where you headed?’
‘I ain’t perticular,’ McAllister told him.
‘My house is yours as the greasers say.’
McAllister said: ‘I could use a steak.’
‘A man didn’t ought to boast,’ Prescott said, ‘but without doubt I have the finest chow in the territory. You’ll see.’
‘I’m a man for my chow,’ McAllister admitted. ‘You’ll have to throw me out.’
Prescott laughed and they got the horses on the move. They headed north and McAllister continued to admire the country, much the same as he had done for the last few days of riding. Maybe the winters were hard in this high country, but the spring pasture that surrounded them on all sides was a sight for sore eyes. He had heard that the grass hereabouts built strongboned horses and he could believe it. Other men had thought the same and some were bringing in cattle, longhorns trailed all the way from Texas on the hoof. McAllister didn’t altogether trust the raising of southern cattle in such a northern clime, but some men surely had confidence in it. He looked at his companion and reckoned he was a cowman through and through.
“I reckon you raise cows hereabouts,’ he tried.
‘Cows?’ Prescott roared in his rich voice. ‘Hell, no, I don’t raise cows. I raise horses, man. Finest horses west of the Missouri. Boastin’ again.’
McAllister’s interest quickened. He was a horseman to his bones and his ambition was to one day own a horse-ranch of his own.
Prescott was talking—
‘I have a dozen fancy breedin’ stock, cross-bred Morgans, even a cross-bred Arab. An’ God knows how many head I have out on winter range. Me an’ the boys’re ketchin’ ’em up now. That’s what I was at when them pesky Jeffords jumped me.’ He talked on about horses and the way he worked them. He was only just started, but he had some big ideas. He was crossing the best of the mustang that he could lay hands on with his fancy stock, and he was breeding a pretty durable kind of an animal that could fend for itself and had plenty of bottom. He didn’t succeed every time, but he’d get there. He planned to sell the rough stuff to the army for working expenses and some of his heavier stock to the ever-growing stage-lines. Railroads couldn’t go everywhere at once, like some men thought, and strong stock would be needed for a good many years to come yet. Sure, he kept a few beeves, mostly for amusement and food and because he couldn’t stop breeding creatures. Did McAllister know he’d crossed a buffalo with a cow? Sure. Men said it couldn’t be done, but he’d done it. He talked on; he talked his head off. He liked to talk and McAllister was a good listener. He learned a lot about Prescott, but Prescott didn’t learn much about him. Either the man didn’t give a damn about another man’s details or he was too polite to ask. After all, a lone drifting stranger might be one jump ahead of the law.
They rode for a couple of hours and then McAllister sighted smoke. All the time they rode, they sighted bunches of horses and they all looked pretty wild and woolly after they had wintered out on the range. But they looked like good stock.
The house they rode down toward was a well-built place and it surprised McAllister who expected a soddy at best. The country hadn’t been opened up that long. Off to one side was another building, long and low, and this, he reckoned, was a bunkhouse. Scattered around were two or three corrals and a circular breaking pen. The grass was gone from most of them and showed the black rich soil where it had been bared by the jaws and hoofs of horses.
Prescott waved a hand over the scene.
‘There she is,’ he cried. ‘Built the whole Goddam shebang with my own hands. What d’you think?’
‘Looks like a fine place,’ McAllister said.
‘You’ll see,’ Prescott said with enormous enthusiasm. He quickened the pace and they loped down into the muddy yard. A man outside the bunkhouse lifted a hand to them. He walked over and Prescott flung his lines to him.
‘Meet Abe Little. Abe, this is McAllister. Saved my bacon.’
Abe was a thin lugubrious man in his thirties with a long drooping mustache, pale washed-out eyes and hands worn hard with the handling of ropes. He shook with McAllister and said no more than ‘Howdy.’ He appreciated the sight of the canelo with a sucking in of his breath and led the two horses away.
‘Good man—Abe,’ Prescott said. ‘Top-hand.’
The door of the house opened and McAllister turned.
He gaped in astonishment. Prescott saw it and laughed, slapped him on the back and bellowed his pleasure.
‘Mrs. Prescott,’ he said.
The woman was maybe a couple of years older than McAllister and she was one of the finest-looking women he had ever set eyes on. She was as tall as her husband and her figure was superb. To find such a woman in this corner of wild Wyoming was almost too much for McAllister. He liked her right off, even before she opened her mouth. There was a directness about her gaze and a warmth about her smile that would have caught the imagination of any man. Her hair was a soft brown, brushed so that it shone like soft silk; her eyes were a bright blue with their color accentuated by the dark brows above them. Her skin was lightly tanned, but the climate had not coarsened it in any way.
Her dress would have passed as attractive in a salon in the east—the dark skirt was topped by a shirt-waist of spotless white. Its simplicity brought out her beauty.
Prescott chuckled.
‘The chow’s good and the women beautiful,’ he cried. ‘What more can a man want?’
McAllister bared his head and bowed briefly.
‘Ma’am,’ he said.
‘This is Mr. McAllister, honey,’ Prescott shouted. ‘He just saved my life, so we feed him real good. Hear?’
Smiling, the woman looked from one man to the other. Prescott shooed her inside—he’d tell her all about it. Come on in, McAllister, make yourself to home. What had he told him? Didn’t he say it was a fine house? Had he lied? Mrs. Prescott said: ‘Hush, Joe,’ but he didn’t pay her any heed.