The deep purple sky was changing rapidly. Fingers of blue, pink and grey were streaking from the east. But to the west, Hector picked out a flickering light, and he knew that the Facing West range cook was setting up breakfast. A little later from somewhere on the flat, a long bellow addressed the brightening sky. It was answered from another point, taken up by another then another. It gave Hector a chance to figure the main gather and breadth of the herd, the direction it was likely to head after moving out.
But a moment later he stopped his measurement and froze. He held his breath, tried desperately not to shake as two rattlesnakes slithered sinuously side-by-side across his outstretched left leg. He cursed, wondered whether he’d disturbed them. I’ve gone an’ bedded down with a couple o’ goddamn courtin’ side-winders, he cursed again, inwardly. He lay very still, waited a long minute for any warning rattle. Then he shuddered, shifted his position and cursed again, as he realized he’d made coldharbour camp where the ridge rock gained its warmth from the approaching day.
He turned his head towards the far side of the pass and grinned. ‘I was tellin’ someone the other day that buzzworms only strike if you disturb or provoke ’em. An’ you’ll probably be back this way later in the day,’ he said, and wondered if Ben MeGovren was having any better luck.
The light grew and Hector examined his surroundings, looked for better cover. He decided that his refuge was as good as anywhere else. ‘We can’t all be wrong,’ he muttered, looking suspiciously around him. He swung his attention back to the flats, to the waking cattle. The night riders would be in and the point would be shaping up. Soon, less than a half mile distant, the herd began to move.
Hector knew that swing riders would take their positions in front of the flankers. They’d shape a bottleneck for the pass, to squeeze the herd through. They’d also be the riders who’d make it scratchy for Ben and himself, once the fight kicked off. He had another look at the short sloping ridge before him, estimated the angles from which it would give him protection from rustlers’ bullets.
The broad dark shadow rolled towards Hector’s cover. The ground picked up the low rumbling tremor as thousands of hoofs took up their day’s march. Far back, a dust curtain rose, hung suspended in the air. Later it would swirl and billow into choking clouds when the breeze picked up.
Hector spat dryness, loosened his pistol in its holster and pulled the Sharps carbine towards him. The lead steers were coming into sight now, and the air was filled with yips and yells, the crack of whips, the dull click of horns. The sound of approaching hoofs grew into a heavy grumble, and Hector made out the riders on point. He expected three, maybe four riders, but when they were a hundred yards distant, he counted up to a dozen. He began cursing again, hoped that Owen Pruitt and his men weren’t in new, increased danger. In their favour was the fact that Yule Wystan’s riders had no inkling of who and what was lying in wait for them at the pass, but there was enough of them to kick out fast and resolute once they’d cleared the narrows.
Hector was in no position or frame of mind to change his strategy for the engagement. They must all of them take their chances. But he reflected that once the cattle were into the pass, Hoope Kettle would at least have fewer guns throwing lead at him.
It was an hour earlier in the first light of dawn that Hoope Kettle sent his big bay splashing through the ford. A single line of fourteen horsemen followed him through the water, made it up the bank close to the tunnel through the prickly pear. Six miles of flat stretched before them, six miles to Lizard Pass, maybe four, to where the big herd would be milling.
Hoope Kettle wasn’t a man who’d spent his life out-tolerating everyone. But he’d always wanted to be certain of a man’s guilt before seeing him brought to justice, let alone hanged. By the same token, he’d never doubted Hector Chaf, never questioned the man’s judgement. But now it was personal and the rancher wanted to get involved, sense the wrong. He wanted to mete out the anger he carried, and he didn’t want to wait long.
Up ahead rode the man who’d worked Kettle’s Standing K brand into the Facing West brand. Such tricks – using a running iron ahead of the roundup – had been done many times before, but the last time Yule Wystan had tried it, it was a hurried botched job, and he’d had to scuttle from south of the Black Mesa in Arizona. But this time he’d worked long and patiently to make this a winning re-brand. And he’d managed to stay low, because he wanted it to be his final move. He’d built a crew of thirty on his payroll, but he considered it a worthy investment. Of the great herd he was now driving, barely a third carried a genuine Facing West brand – a contrived brand, solely for the purpose of rustling.
Wystan was riding drag with half-a-dozen trigger men strung out to his left and right. With the bulk of the herd moving, the rest needed little prodding, and Wystan had detailed the hired guns to ride with him. The men rode with added early morning frostiness because they had spent the night time hours guarding against what might come at them from across the shallows of the Rio Bonito.
But one man sided up to Wystan with a relieved smirk on his face. ‘I’m sure glad we’re movin’, Mr Wystan,’ he said.
‘Yeah, so am I. But it’s only when we’re across the water an’ through the pass, no one can touch us.’
‘If you’re still worryin’ about that brace o’ K men we spotted yesterday, there was nothin’ for ’em to get suspicious about. They didn’t see nothin.’
The light was getting stronger, and Wystan looked behind, and then all around him. ‘That’s a nothin’ you don’t know for certain,’ he said. ‘I got me a belly gnaw, Ringo. It’s the belief that if somethin’ can go wrong it probably will. An’ it’s when that’s got me rattled, I don’t mind admittin’.’
‘The only feelin in your belly’s probably from eatin’ cow dust,’ Ringo Chawke countered. ‘You’re back here fillin’ up with alkali. Why not ride out to the flank? From there you’ll see the pass real good.’
‘What’s that?’ Wystan demanded sharply and twisted in his saddle. ‘What’s that?’ he repeated. ‘You hear it?’
‘Hell, you sure are rattled,’ Ringo answered, without taking the trouble to look or listen.
Wystan faced backward, one hand gripping the cantle. ‘You can hear that, can’t you?’ he growled.
‘Yeah, somethin’ maybe,’ Ringo said quietly. ‘But I can’t see nothin’.’
‘Ride to the near flank,’ Wystan told him. ‘Call in the men that side. Send Cruz out to the other flank. It might be nothin’, but I ain’t takin’ any chances. An’ nor’s my scrawny ol’ neck.’