The outlaws faced Slaughter. The big trail boss stood with his legs spread, his back to Jordan. Several of his riders had gathered about him in careless but watchful silence.
“What’s got you thinking he came here?” Slaughter demanded, blunt and impatient.
“Not sure he did,” Crawford replied. “Just had a hunch he might. Man on the run tries all kinds of fancy tricks.”
He had not fooled the outlaws for a solitary moment, Ben realized. Crawford, personally acquainted with the problems of a man on the dodge, had recognized the possibilities a trail herd presented and deemed it wise not to ignore but to investigate. “A tall man, wearin’ a sheepskin jacket. Rides a sorrel with white forelegs.”
Slaughter was still for several moments. “What do you want him for?”
“Bank robbery,” Crawford said. “Been chasin’ him clear across Arizona and half of New Mexico. About had him two or three times, but he’s mighty slippery. Got away from us.”
Jordan listened in amazement to the bald effrontery of Bart Crawford. The outlaws were passing themselves off as lawmen! They were making it appear that he—or, in reality, Walt Woodward—was the criminal! A surge of anger rocked Ben Jordan. He started to rise, to rush out into the open and confront Crawford and his gang, denounce them as liars before Slaughter and the others. And then he realized that would be a foolish gesture. He could prove nothing. He was a stranger to the trail boss and his riders, and it would be his word against that of Bart Crawford, backed by Aaron, Davis, and the narrow-faced Gates. Slaughter would have little choice but to believe Crawford. And he did have $20,000 in his saddlebags, something that would bolster Crawford’s accusations despite any explanation he would make. Fuming, feeling utterly helpless to protect himself, Ben Jordan listened to the conversation between the two men.
“Figure he’s shot up some,” Crawford said. “One of my boys here thinks he winged him a couple of days ago.”
“The man I hired didn’t look like anything was bothering him,” Slaughter stated flatly. “Fact is, he …”
“There was a place on his sleeve,” a cowpuncher, sprawled out on his bedroll and propped on one elbow, volunteered. Ben recognized him as the first man he had encountered when he reached the herd.
“What kind of a place?”
“Sort of ragged like. Maybe a bullet hole. And somebody’s washed it up, like they’d cleaned off blood.”
Crawford glanced at Cleve Aaron, then at Gates and Davis. “Could’ve been him,” he drawled. “What kind of a horse was he ridin’?”
There was no immediate answer. The cowpuncher sank back onto his blankets. Slaughter drew a sack of tobacco and a folder of papers from a pocket, and began to roll himself a smoke.
“I’m askin’ what kind of a horse?” Crawford snarled. “Speak up! You want me to charge the whole bunch of you with interferin’ with the law?”
The trail boss shrugged. “Do what you damn’ well please, friend. Threatening won’t get you nowhere. I don’t figure the man I hired is the one you’re looking for.”
“What kind of a horse?” Crawford pressed in a cold voice.
“He was riding a sorrel,” the man on the blanket said. “Had white stockings.”
Gates and the other two outlaws drew themselves upright in their saddles, looking expectantly at Crawford.
“Where is he?” the renegade leader asked.
Slaughter waved his hand toward the swale where the herd was bedded. “Out doing his trick at night hawking. He’ll be coming in for supper pretty quick.”
Arlie Davis, breaking the silence he and the others had maintained throughout the conversation, said: “Reckon, we’d better get over there. Could be he’ll pull out again.”
Crawford thought for a moment, shook his head. “Nope, don’t figure he’ll do that. He thinks he’s safe here. And trying to find him in the dark could tip him off. Best we wait.” He brought his attention back to the men around the fire, touched each with his hard glance. “Nobody leaves, understand? Anybody tries to warn him …”
“Won’t be anybody doing that,” Slaughter said, “because we don’t figure he’s your man. Jacobs there’s got his ropes all crossed up about the ’puncher he saw.” The trail boss paused, confronted with extending a standard courtesy he cared little to observe in this instance. “Reckon you might as well step down. Coffee and grub over there at the chuck wagon.”
Slaughter turned away. Crawford’s voice, sharp and suspicious, split the hush. “Where you think you’re goin’?”
The cattleman did not halt, simply glanced over his shoulder. “I’m taking a turn around the herd, then I’m crawling into my blankets.”
Crawford spurred his black across the camp and pulled up short in front of the trail boss. “What I said goes for you, too, mister!”
Slaughter, a man with his temper always lying close to the surface, reached up impulsively. He grasped the front of Crawford’s coat, dragged him from the saddle. He swung the outlaw half around, shoved him, and sent him sprawling into the dust. “Don’t be telling me what I can’t do!” he raged. “This happens to be my camp, and you, lawman or not, sure ain’t running things here!”
Davis and Cleve Aaron had moved quickly, and were now at opposite ends of the circle thrown by the firelight. Gates was motionless. Each now held a cocked pistol. In the tight silence Bart Crawford pulled himself to his feet, his eyes on Slaughter’s huge shape. He hung there, half crouched, poised as though ready to spring. And then he relaxed suddenly. He picked up his hat, dusted himself. “I’ll overlook that, mister,” he said in a low voice. “This time anyway. But you’re not ridin’ out. You or nobody else … not until Woodward shows up. After that you can do as you damn’ please.”
A man on the opposite side of the fire cleared his throat nervously. “Cattle’s a mite jumpy, Mister Slaughter,” he said. “Some sort of a ruckus would sure start them a-running.”
The big trail boss glanced at the threatening figures of Gates, Arlie Davis, and Aaron. He shrugged angrily. “All right, all right. Have it your way.”
Jordan watched Slaughter wheel and cross the camp to where a lantern hung from a mesquite bush. There the trail boss squatted down, drew a tally book from his pocket, and began to flip through the pages.
Crawford studied the man in glowering silence for several moments, and then turned to the rest of his party. He motioned and they drew together again and dismounted.
Ben Jordan withdrew into the shadows as the four outlaws started across the camp for the chuck wagon behind which he was crouching. The cook, hunched by the fire, sucked at his blackened pipe and made no effort to rise and accommodate the guests; common courtesy required Slaughter to invite the strangers to climb down and eat, but it did not necessarily include being waited on.
Jordan reached the sorrel, and stood for a time with his eyes on the camp. The tough, brassy ways of Bart Crawford had infuriated him. He would like nothing better than to call the outlaw’s bluff, and expose him and his three men for what they were. He could imagine Slaughter’s irate reaction. But it wasn’t practical, or even possible. He had nothing with which to back his contention. He could do nothing but let the matter drop—and move on.
He took up the gelding’s reins and led the horse away from the camp a good distance before he swung into the saddle. He could take no chances on Crawford, or anyone else, hearing the sound of the sorrel’s hoof beats. He glanced at the stars in the black canopy of sky overhead, squared his directions, and struck off once again into the northeast. Tom Ashburn’s Lazy A spread could not be far now.