Powder spent the night in the bunkhouse, but not in sleeping. Unasked, he watched beside Jimmy Dowst, and bathed the injured man’s fevered face with cold water, or spooned a few swallows between parching lips. Toward morning, the strained look faded, and Dowst drifted into a natural sleep. Dawn was coming in at the windows, stalking gray shadows across the prairie and routing them, when Mary Ellen appeared to inquire anxiously about Jimmy.
“I think he’s improving,” Powder reassured her. “He must have taken a crack on the head, along with the rest. That was a nasty spill,” he added musingly. “One of the worst I’ve ever seen.”
She looked at him quickly. “Were you there? I didn’t know that.”
“I was close enough to see,” he explained, and let it go at that. Mary Ellen cooked breakfast, and the three of them ate, McGill worried and preoccupied. As they were finishing, half of the crew arrived, including Laredo. A new disaster had brought them in from the roundup. Mike Tobin lay stretched in his own chuck wagon, instead of driving it. He was a leathery oldster who had often boasted that he was too tough to kill, but the color had fled his face now, leaving it a sickly hue, that of a tired-out old man.
“He tumbled over, just as we was eatin’ supper las’ night,” Laredo explained. “Like to fell in his own cook fire. This mornin’ he acted sick. So we brought him back. We’ll operate out from here now. Devil of a note, all these things happening, just when we’re so busy.”
“Anyway, Powder can ride with you,” McGill spoke up. “He’ll take Jimmy’s place.”
“And I can do the cooking for a few days,” Mary Ellen added, and made a face. “Much as I hate it!”
Laredo swung his gaze to Powder, the animosity unhidden. “You hired him?” The words were half a challenge. Seeing the answer in McGill’s eyes, a malicious triumph overspread his features, and he asserted his foreman’s authority.
“We don’t need him on the range,” he said. “Mary Ellen’s got plenty to do without cooking.” He swung on Powder. “You can dish up chow till Tobin’s better. Try and fix a mess that we can eat.”
Angry protest rose on Powder’s lips. Then, seeing the triumph in Laredo’s eyes, he changed his mind. His answer was a question. “How many for supper?”
“Be about fifteen of us.”
Powder nodded, without comment. After the others had ridden away, Mary Ellen eyed him uncertainly.
“Maybe I can help, to kind of show you the ropes—”
“I’ll manage,” Powder assured her. “Like he said, I reckon you’re plenty busy, getting ready for the trip. If you have any extra time, you might look in on the sick men, occasionally.” He put the cook in a bunk, and Mary Ellen washed the old man’s face, but there was no change. With Jimmy Dowst it was different. Opening his eyes at mid-morning, he seemed surprised to find himself in bed, and insisted that he could get up. Then he grimaced and turned pale at the attempt to swing his legs over the edge of the bunk. He looked at Powder in startled uncertainty.
“I thought I felt all right, but something hurts like blazes, inside,” he protested. “I don’t understand it.”
“You got twisted up somehow in that tumble,” Powder explained. “You’ll have to take things easy a few days while it fixes itself. Anyway, you’ve earned a rest.”
It came natural, watching the sick men together, to talk. As the sun topped its climb, he explained his name in answer to a question. “Burns was the family name. As for the Powder, I was sort of cut out to smell powder smoke, seems like. I first saw the light of a quarter-moon right alongside Powder River, up in Montana. So I been Powder Burns ever since.”
The crew came in, tired and hungry, as the shadows, temporarily routed, were pushing back the sun in turn. The men were expectant but not too hopeful as they crowded into the dining room, off from the bunkhouse. Then their eyes lighted at sight of the food, the delectable odors.
For a while there was little conversation, beyond requests to pass something. But their approval was manifest.
It was a simple meal, but sumptuous. There were yams to go with roast beef, hot biscuits, and berry pie. Having eaten heartily, the men expressed their approval. Jokingly they hoped that Mike Tobin would remain sick a few days longer. He was good, as range cooks went, but his had been a rough and ready technique. Pies were beyond him, meat he fried as steak but never roasted, though sometimes he made stew. To the riders it was an epicurean treat.
Several of them crowded into the bunkhouse at the conclusion, following Powder. There was no change in Tobin, though he seemed to be sleeping. Jimmy Dowst, having just polished off a piece of pie, grinned.
“Sure, I’m fine,” he assured them. “Who wouldn’t be, after grub like that? Only thing is, when I try to get up, something catches me inside. But I’ll be all right in a few days.”
“They tell me you had a bad spill,” McGill said. “Lucky for you that Laredo was so close.”
“Laredo?” Dowst looked surprised. “Lucky for me that Powder was handy. When Laredo tossed his loop and missed, I thought I was a goner. Would have been, too, if Powder hadn’t emptied his gun mighty fast and dropped that dogie ’fore he could gore me.”
Laredo had appeared at the door, accompanied by Mary Ellen—in time to overhear. McGill’s head jerked, and Laredo swung away, but not before Powder could see the rage sweep his face like the first blasting onrush of a Norther. He jerked petulantly at Mary Ellen’s arm, but, saying nothing, she came on in and crossed to feel Mike Tobin’s pulse. The men filed out in an uneasy silence.
Mike Tobin lingered out the days in Texas, as though loath to depart before the rest of them. But that he was going on a journey of his own far west was easy to see. He slept most of the time, and only once were his eyes clear when he opened them. There was a look of understanding, of contentment, deep in their depths.
“No need to worry,” he formed the words to Mary Ellen. “I’ll stay in Texas—and that suits me.”
He died the afternoon of the fifth day, and they laid him in his soil of Texas on the sixth. The following morning the big herd, now gathered, would begin the long drive to the north.
Jimmy Dowst was doing better, but he was a puzzle to himself and a worry to his friends. Though insisting that he felt fine, he could take only a few halting steps before weakness came upon him. It was apparent that he’d be long in setting a saddle again, and Laredo voiced a blunt opinion.
“You’re in no shape to go along, Dowst. You got folks in the Corazones, ain’t you?”
Jimmy’s face lost its color. “Yeah,” he admitted. “But they don’t want to see me—any more’n I want to see them. They’re kin—but I was just an extra mouth to feed, where there was a scad too many already. That’s why I got out a couple years ago.”
“But they’re your folks, and it’s up to them to take care of you,” Laredo grunted. “Not us.”
Mary Ellen’s eyes held an angry flash. “Jimmy’s set his heart on going to Montana, along with the rest of us,” she said. “He’s loyal to Broadaxe. And he was hurt working for the outfit. He can go with us.”
Laredo shrugged. “Have it your way, Mary Ellen,” he agreed. “I was just thinkin’ of the good of the outfit. This won’t be a picnic journey. In that case, Dowst, you can help Burns. He’ll need a cookee.”
Powder, overhearing, looked startled. For a moment, whiteness made a stubborn line around his mouth. It was one thing to cook here for a few days, with the big stove in the cook shack, the well-stocked larder, and everything easy and convenient. Cooking from a chuck wagon, across a thousand miles of trail, would be a different story.
Then he shrugged. He’d dug his own pit, showing how well be could sling hash. Now he was trapped. No one would take kindly to his giving up the job, certainly not Laredo. And there were compensations.
Boake Queen’s crew were preparing to hang a man. They went about the task methodically, not liking it. But No-Brand Burley had been caught stealing Sword steers, or attempting to. The vast Sword herd, conveniently rounded up, watched by a dozen night riders, had presented a tempting opportunity. To cut off half a hundred stragglers from the fringes of the bunch and get away in the night would not ordinarily offer many problems, particularly to such skilled operators as No-Brand Burley’s well-trained night riders.
Sheer bad luck had spoiled the plan tonight. The first part of the operation had been successfully accomplished with none of the circling watchers the wiser. Then another dozen of the Sword crew, homeward bound from some business of their own, at what Burley justifiably considered an ungodly hour for honest men, had come full upon them, without warning.
In the ensuing skirmish, one of the Sword riders had taken a bullet in his arm, an incident not calculated to soothe Sword tempers. One of Burley’s men had also suffered a blood-letting, and the cattle had been recovered. The other rustlers escaped in the night, but Burley had been surrounded at the jump-off, without a chance to put up a fight.
Under those circumstances, there was nothing to do but hang him, however distasteful the job.
No-Brand Burley shrugged philosophically and gazed upward at the moon, considering the noose which dangled between it and his head. Soon they would be dangling together, and the realization was a severe trial to his coolness.
“Got it tight over that branch, Mitch?” one man called, and, receiving an affirmative reply, turned to Burley. “I’ll adjust it over your neck, No-Brand,” he explained. “Then ride yore horse out from under.” He paused for a moment to make certain that the rustler’s hands were tied tightly behind his back, to remove the temptation to climb.
“We’ll make this as easy as slippin’ downhill in the mud,” he added, and adjusted the rough hemp fibers carefully. “I got a knot here that’ll save you from chokin’. Does a quick, easy job. You got anything you want to say?”
“A couple of things, yeah. First, how about a chaw of tobacker? There’s a plug in my left hip pocket.”
“Sure.” The cowboy fumbled in the pocket, held the plug to his mouth, and Burley bit off a satisfying chew. “You boys might’s well have the rest of it,” he added generously. “Reckon I won’t be wantin’ anymore.”
“Why, that’s right thoughtful of you. We’ll remember you kindly. You said there was somethin’ else?”
“Yeah. Just make sure you get it over quick, like you mentioned.” No-Brand sighed. His philosophy, at this moment, was being severely tried. He wished for an interruption, anything to bring about delay. Quite unexpectedly, it came, and from an unlooked-for source. Boake Queen himself spoke from the gloom.
“What’s going on here?”
They told him, as he pushed closer, two or three of them striving to peer through the gloom at their employer’s face, while carefully avoiding the appearance of curiosity. What the half-light revealed looked as if the boss had been in a fight—the battle of his life. Burley also noticed the signs, but without elation. This delay seemed slated to be of a very temporary nature.
“His crew got away, you say?” Queen demanded.
“Yeah. Hard to catch as fleas. Though I think we winged one of them.”
Queen had the reputation of being an unexpected man, always unpredictable, and now he lived up to tradition. He urged his horse alongside, and reached over with his own hands to jerk the noose from about Burley’s neck and toss it aside.
“You’d ought to hang, No-Brand,” he said. “I can’t think of anybody that has it coming more than you. But I think I’ll let you live a while. Come on back to the ranch with me. There’s something I want to talk to you about.”
And half a plug of good chewin’ gone, Burley thought wistfully. But I guess it evens up.
The ranch house on Sword was of logs, a squat and unlovely thing from without but solid and comfortable within. Boake Queen’s father had built it with an eye to the future. His only mistake had been a neglect to acquire title to the land which he claimed as his own, even that on which the house now stood.
It had been home to Queen all his days and regret was in him, coupled with anger, at the thought of leaving it behind. Though the knowledge that there was good range waiting in Montana, land which he had had the foresight to visit and make sure he could acquire, tempered that dissatisfaction. Now he looked about the comfortable room into which he ushered Burley, viewing it by the light of the coal-oil lamp.
Most of the rooms had been stripped of such personal belongings as he intended to take north, but this one was untouched and would remain so. A bear rug was on the floor, showing signs of wear. The grizzly had been shot by his father on the day when he decided to make this land his own. Now grizzlies were an extinct species hereabout, just as the men who had made them so were fast becoming.
A nester—Queen never used the word homesteader—wanting to do the fair thing, had offered Boake a thousand dollars for the house. Queen had refused.
“But why?” the nester had argued. “That’s clear profit in your pocket, man. And I’m tryin’ to be fair. You can’t take it with you.”
“Your money doesn’t interest me,” Queen had replied politely, stating the simple truth. Now he motioned his guest to a chair and took one himself.
“I take it that you’d like to go on living, No-Brand?” he asked. “Most people seem to have a hankering that way.”
“And you never know how strong it is till there’s a rope around your neck,” Burley retorted fervently. “Yeah, I’d do most anything to keep my neck uncovered. What you got in mind?”
“Nothing startling. I want you to keep on rustling cattle—but not mine!”
Burley stared, not sure that he had heard aright. Part of that statement made sense, but the rest of it had a strange sound.
“What was that again?” he asked cautiously.
“I wouldn’t have saved you from that rope if you couldn’t be useful to me,” Queen explained. “I’m supposing that you’ll be grateful enough to do what I want—particularly since it offers a chance for big profit for you.”
“Anything you want, I’ll do it,” Burley agreed. “I’d be makin’ that rope bite deep in the bark of that tree limb by now if you hadn’t come along.”
“Exactly. And here’s my proposition. McGill is gathering his herd to start north in a few days. I want you to make sure that he never reaches Montana with them. It might be a good idea to let him travel for a while without any hindrance, to get him well away from this part of the country. Forty-eight hours after he’s cleared his range, the nesters will swarm in like flies ahead of a storm, so there’ll be no turning back.”
No-Brand Burley leaned forward, blinking his shoe-button eyes. “And you want to steal the Broadaxe bunch, somewhere along the trail?”
“Yes. Make a clean sweep. I don’t want McGill or his family hurt, understand, or his wagons bothered. But get the herd.”
“And what do I do with it, after that?”
“What do you usually do with the cattle you steal? Sell them, I suppose, to somebody else who is short on scruples. For whatever you can get. That’s your business.”
“And what’s your cut? Half?”
“I don’t want a cent of your crooked money,” Queen snapped. “Just so you get the cattle away from McGill, what you do with them or the money they bring is up to you. And it’s all yours.”
Burley drew a deep, incredulous breath. “I don’t get this,” he protested. “There’s a lot of money represented in a herd like that. And another thing. Why do you want me to steal Old Man McGill blind? I’ve heard that you was kind of sweet on his girl.”
“You heard right,” Queen agreed. “I am.” He pondered a moment, and decided that the truth could do no harm. “I aim to marry her, when we get to Montana,” he added. “But she won’t look at me now, and McGill’s just like her—too damned headstrong for any use. But if they reach Montana with only the shirts on their backs, they’ll sing a different tune. A son-in-law who can not only set her pa up in business again, but is willing to do so, the minute she says the word—well, can you think of a stronger argument?”
Burley stared, slow understanding of this man coming to him. He was still incredulous. “That ought to be a right convincin’ argument,” he conceded. “But they ain’t no woman worth that much.”
“That’s my worry,” Queen said shortly. “He’s starting out with two thousand head. I’ll be glad to give hm that many of mine to set him up in business again. I’ll never miss them. And when it comes to that, I’ll get back everything, sooner or later, as his son-in-law. Your business is to see that his herd never reaches Montana.”
“I’ll tend to it,” Burley agreed. “Trust me for that. It’s the best-soundin’ deal I ever run across.”
“See that there’s no slip-up,” Queen warned. “If there is, I’ll hunt you down and put that noose back around your neck!” If that gesture of Boake Queen’s was strange, it was in keeping with the rest of him.
Morning found the big Sword herd ready to move. Queen sat his horse and gestured with an arm, and the cattle swung slowly into motion. Off in the distance was a light wagon, loaded with the man who had offered to buy his house, with his family and a collection of household goods. They had been camped there two days now, waiting to move in.
Queen eyed them, smiling tightly. Once the big herd was well under way, he turned back, going first to the house, then to the big barn, and from there to the other buildings. When at length he spurred to overtake the herd, flames made a merry crackle, and the smoke, rising upward, was like a funeral pyre for a period which had closed.
A thousand miles was a short estimate, a way of speaking. The total distance would be half as much again, and every man knew it as the Broadaxe herd was lined out on the first day. Powder Burns realized it, better perhaps than many of the others, for he’d covered this trail before from north to south.
There were three wagons, the chuck wagon which he drove, with Jimmy Dowst sitting beside him. A second wagon was driven by Doc, one of the cowboys. It contained extra supplies, more than could be carried in the chuck wagon. Also, like the wagon which Mary Ellen drove, there were a few things from the house, furnishings which she couldn’t bear to part with. Three wagons—moving off ahead of the herd, to reach their destination early so that supper would be ready for hungry men when they arrived.
It was easy the first few days. A dozen miles a day, and no hindrances. Too much good luck at the start of a trip was the thought in Powder’s mind, but he did not voice it aloud. He was only the cook this time, and it was Laredo who rodded the herd.
Laredo seemed satisfied. He was as close to good nature as he ever came. One thing was manifest to all, and Powder wondered about it increasingly. Laredo Scott liked Mary Ellen, and he seemed certain that she must like him. Or at least he seemed determined that she should. With Laredo it appeared to be a certainty that he was overlord of this outfit, that all in it, from the lowliest calf to the man whose brand the cattle wore, must do as he told them.
They crossed the Colorado, the sun shining clear and touching the sandy bottom to silver, until the herd, following close behind the wagons, swirled it to mud. A shower spilled across the land, and the cattle fell eagerly on the rain-freshened grass on the far side. Kaintuck, an easygoing cowhand, lifted his voice in song, a clear tenor mellow to the ears of man and beast alike. Life was good.
It was late one afternoon when they reached the Trinity, running just short of flood stage. The westering sun glinting crimson on the current managed at this point to get in the eyes of men and cattle. The first mild harbinger of trouble came when Mary Ellen’s wagon lurched with a sickening crash and came to a stand, the horses glaring back, trembling in the traces.
There had been nothing visible on the trail. Just a small mound of dirt such as was to be seen in countless heaps where a gopher had burrowed. Doc had driven ahead without difficulty. But Mary Ellen’s wheel tracks had deviated by a matter of inches. A rear wheel dropped into a washed-out tunnel, letting it fall to the hub. The wheel broke.
It was not too serious. Laredo galloped up and surveyed the damage, and cast an eye toward the storm-clouds building up beyond the river, tussling with the reluctant sun. “I’ll have the boys fix it and bring the wagon across, soon as the herd’s on the other side,” he promised. “Better leave it now, Mary Ellen. You ride across with Burns. There’s a storm coming.”
That was the first intimation any of them had received of his intention to cross the Trinity that day. Powder had been about to pull out and start preparations for supper. But it might be a wise decision. He had a hunch that there was rain in those clouds. North and west of them was a vast sweep, a watershed to rival some states. Morning might find the Trinity with a bone in its teeth.
Apparently Laredo’s decision had been sudden. The herd had been pushing to the water, to string out and suck it thirstily. Ordinarily they’d drink for an hour before all were satisfied. Now, at the foreman’s signal, the crew was pushing them on the jump, urging them in. A few tried to turn back, eager for the sweet grass they had tasted. Then they lined out, swimming, heads lifted, long horns like an army with drawn rapiers at the charge, brown backs aswirl.
“Wish I’d known,” Powder muttered. “I’d have been across ahead of them.” There was only one choice now. The wagons must swing downstream, cross below the swimming cattle. It would be deep, the worst water they’d forded. But there was nowhere else to go, and the chuck wagon couldn’t wait till the herd was across. That would make supper too late, and men who did such work had to have their meals on time.
“Maybe you’d better wait and come with your wagon, later,” he suggested, as Mary Ellen prepared to join him. “There may be trouble.”
“You’ll need help,” Mary Ellen said, and flashed him a smile. “And if it’s going to be bad, I’d rather ride with you, Powder. Jimmy’s with Doc, and Jimmy swears you know how to handle trouble.”
The words and smile were warming. There was something about this girl that could warm a man or steel him to endeavor. No wonder that Boake Queen had come under the bright spell of her quick glance, that Laredo Scott thought first of her welfare. It would be pleasant to have her ride with him, ordinarily. A woman to ride the river with! Most times, but worry was in him as he urged the team ahead.
The cattle were responding well, after that first disappointment. Some of them were already two-thirds of the way across, swept considerably downstream by the steady push of the current, but having no particular trouble. They had outgained the point riders, tiny dots at the edge of the herd. The whole swimming mass formed a ragged letter S almost from bank to bank.
Powder drove with a steady rein, expertly judging the water, seeking to pick a good course. The trouble was that you couldn’t tell quicksand by the water above, and mud stirred by hoofs was hiding all other sign. Under his breath he cursed the foreman for a fool. Laredo hadn’t scouted the crossing, neither going in himself nor sending another man to test for depth, sudden deep holes or the drag of the quicksand. He’d been in a hurry, suddenly worried about that building storm, but that was no excuse for carelessness. One of these days he’d blunder badly—
It looked as if that time was now. The signal was a booming roll of guns from the far bank—a dozen rifles speaking in unison, like the thunder of storm. Leaden hail slashed, a steer bawled wildly, and a man, riding to keep the leaders moving, fell out of the saddle and was a plaything of the current as the rifles roared again. Ambush!