SEVEN

‘Riding out with the lady, are you?’ Nate Arbuckle asked, as Sandy was tightening the cinches on his saddle.

‘She has a way of asking that makes it kind of hard to refuse,’ Sandy answered.

‘Yeah, well… watch out for her. And for yourself,’ Nate said. ‘Here’s something you might need.’ He handed Sandy a recognizable green box of .44 cartridges. ‘Here’s hoping you don’t need them all.’

‘There’s always hope,’ Sandy replied. Stuffing the .44s into the saddle-bags as well, he swung aboard the roan and walked the eager animal out into the brilliant morning sunlight. Sitting upright in his saddle was enough to make Sandy wince with the pain it caused his battered ribs, but Corrine seemed not to notice. She did notice his face, however.

‘You’ve got a couple of nice bruises on your face. I didn’t notice those last night. What happened?’

She seemed innocent of the attack that Sandy had suffered after leaving her house. Perhaps it was only coincidence that she had instructed him to leave by the front door. Randall, Cavett and Cox might have been waiting out there because they naturally expected him to leave that way.

Sandy hoped so. He didn’t like to think he might be riding into a deceitful woman’s further plots. He could tell nothing by her face. There was no expression there except one of determination.

He had no idea how she expected to render justice to Amos Coyne and his friends. He asked her, ‘How do you expect to do anything against these men?’

‘They wouldn’t dare lift a finger against me,’ she said with certainty.

Now that might have been true back on Sky Box where they all worked for Vincent Skye, but this was a different situation. He asked her why she hadn’t summoned her crew of cowboys to trail after Coyne, and it was explained – to her satisfaction – that they needed their working men on the ranch. This quest was her own idea; she couldn’t pull valuable men away from their duties.

Which left Sandy, who apparently was not to be considered a valuable hand. Well, the woman was partly right. Sandy did still hold a grudge against Coyne although he felt that his part of the bargain had been achieved. He had told Vincent Skye of Amos Coyne’s wicked ways. That was all he had felt obligated to do. Now the slim, erect lady riding next to him expected him to do more: to risk laying down his life for her and the Sky Box. Since he was employed by neither it seemed a large request. Just as puzzling was why Corrine should have enough faith in him to select him for this task. Surely among the ranch hands were one or two who could have been chosen to make the ride with her.

Maybe she figured that any man crazy enough to make the long ride Sandy had to warn her father was crazy enough or angry enough to continue pursuing Amos Coyne. Her words, her expression gave him no hint, and Sandy knew that he was not bright enough to understand the workings of a woman’s mind.

‘Can you find their trail?’ Corrine asked.

‘I have no idea where they’re going,’ he admitted. ‘But three of Coyne’s men were at the house last night…’ He paused, watching for some indication that Corrine had already known that. There was none. Her eyes were fixed straight ahead on the long land, her jaw set. ‘Their tracks will be fresh and you’d think they have to be riding to meet Coyne.’

‘And you haven’t been able to pick up their sign yet?’ Corrine asked.

‘I’ve been looking; but not yet.’ Sandy shook his head. ‘Let’s angle northward a little. We’re bound to cut their sign if they came this way, which they must have; they wouldn’t hit the long trail back to La Paloma – and there is no other place to go in that direction.’

Corrine nodded and remained silent as the dawn-red sun rose higher and yellowed. It wasn’t long before they did cut the fresh sign of three horses heading westward into the low foothills. To be certain, Sandy asked, ‘Should there be any Sky Box men riding this way this morning?’

‘No, of course not,’ Corrine said, as if Sandy were a fool for asking.

‘I just wanted to be sure,’ he answered, his voice a little cranky. ‘I wouldn’t want to waste the morning following a false trail.’

They had drawn up near a shallow creek, glittering a silver-blue in the early sunlight.

Corrine asked, ‘If we find Amos Coyne’s tracks, how would we know?’

‘How?’ Sandy had removed his hat to wipe out the sweat band with his kerchief. ‘We might not for sure. I’m not familiar with his horse’s prints. I never had reason to pay any particular attention to them. But from what we know, we should see signs of a lone rider leading three stolen horses.’

‘Like these?’ Corrine asked, her eyes sharp and clear. She pointed to the mud flanking the creek. Sandy swung down to study the tracks. Separated, but not widely from those of the three men they had been following, there were definite hoofprints of a gathering of ponies, led to water at this point. In the softer soil they had lasted quite a while. Sandy squatted down on his heels and studied them more closely.

‘Was I right?’ Corrine said, her glow triumphant as Sandy swung back into leather.

‘You were right,’ Sandy nodded. For in the soft earth he had seen the prints of a horse newly shod on its front hoofs. They were the tracks of his own stolen gray horse.

Corrine rode with Sandy across the shallow creek, her eyes still bright with a sort of pleasure. But as they rose from the far side of the bottom and started onward toward the long row of distant hills again and the sun continued to rise and grow warmer, as the miles passed those eyes faded to weary resignation. Finding Amos Coyne’s sign was not the same as catching up with the turncoat, running him down and recovering the stolen money from the cattle sale which was needed not only for present debts and future operations, but for paying the men who now rode for Sky Box.

Corrine had a lot to consider and to worry about, and all of Sky Box’s problems were now hers alone. Once, as the long trail continued to wind on and the day grew hotter, Sandy glanced at the woman whose mouth formed a few silent sounds which might have been curses aimed at Amos Coyne. Well, she had every right.

Approaching the ragged, broken foothills in mid-afternoon, at Sandy’s suggestion they decided to look for a shady place to rest. The horses were flagging and their lungs were heated and filled with trail dust, their throats parched. Coyne and his crew would have stopped as well during the heat of the day. There would have been no point in them running hard when they expected no pursuit. Sandy and Corrine would not be losing much ground to them by resting for a while.

Or so Sandy had convinced himself. His back, ribs and shoulders were aching and his head was throbbing. He had to get out of the saddle for at least a little while. The red roan was an easy-riding horse, but its every step now sent a jolt of pain through Sandy’s skull.

‘Do you see anything?’ Corrine asked, surveying the empty land ahead of them, her own weariness plain.

‘Just ahead, a small stand of live-oak trees. See them?’

They swung down in the shelter of four or five dusty trees which did little to cut the harsh afternoon sunlight angling through their branches. There was a patch of short yellow grass beneath the trees, brittle and also dusty. The horses did not seem to mind as they foraged for what nourishment they could find. Sandy removed the bandanna he had been wearing across his nose and mouth against the wind-blown dust and used it to wipe out his hat once again and to dry his neck and throat. He had always heard that women do not perspire as freely as men. He did not know why, but as Corrine removed her hat and sat on the dry earth as gracefully as if she were seating herself on some comfortable settee, her tanned face was dry and smooth-appearing.

Sandy lowered himself to the ground a little distance away from her. The movements employed caused the pain in his ribs and shoulders to begin acting up again. Corrine sat serenely studying the land around them. Sandy watched her blue eyes and the dark hair the wind grasped and teased, the fine lines of her cheeks and jaw.

‘I think I know where they’ve gone,’ Corrine announced suddenly, still keeping her eyes on the wide land, the tangle of the low rank of broken hills.

‘You do?’ Sandy asked with some surprise. He then took a drink of tepid water from his canteen and watched and waited for a full minute while Corrine considered.

‘Yes, once, years ago when I still considered Amos Coyne to be a gentleman and a trustworthy man, he and I rode out this way. It was in the spring – much cooler, of course, with wildflowers scattered across the land. He began telling me of a section of grassland he had found south of Bigelow – do you know where that town is, Rivers?’

‘I’ve been past it. If you don’t have a good reason to stop there, there’s no point in doing so.’

‘Yes. I was given to understand that it was quite small, but growing.’

‘It’s malformed and I doubt it will ever grow,’ Sandy replied, drawing a fairly sharp glance from Corrine.

‘Just because you don’t like Amos Coyne …’ She began again. ‘Anyway, I was told that Bigelow was set to grow, it only needed more commerce brought in. Cattle ranches often bring prosperity to nearby towns.’

‘So long as they’ve got a saloon and a female population,’ Sandy agreed.

‘Rivers,’ Corrine scolded, ‘you know you are difficult to talk to.’

‘I suppose,’ he answered. ‘I do most of my talking to my horses and to trail-hardened men.’ He paused. ‘Usually I’m called Sandy, not Rivers, by the way.’

‘By the horses?’ Corrine asked teasingly, and she smiled. It was an irresistible expression and Sandy grinned in return. He was interested now in Bigelow and what Amos Coyne had indicated might be where he had planned to root his new ranch.

‘Did you ever see the country he had in mind?’ Sandy enquired.

‘No,’ the girl said, ‘we never did get that far on that day. It’s a long ride, you understand, and if I was not home by sunset, Father would have skinned the both of us.’

‘He was a wise man.’

‘He was rough on me!’ Corrine said sharply. ‘Mean, you might say.’

Sandy asked softly, ‘And aren’t you glad now that he was?’

Corrine smiled again. ‘Yes,’ she said, nodding her head. ‘Yes, I suppose I am.’ She started to rise. ‘Think the horses have had enough of a rest?’

‘Not really, but I guess that’s about all they need.’ He stood, looking westward himself. The tracks they had been following earlier had long since faded out against the dry earth, too hard to take imprints. ‘What do you think we should do, Corrine? Continue in the direction their tracks were tending or straight-line it into Bigelow?’

‘Bigelow, if it is up to me. We can find a place to eat and beds to sleep on. In the morning we can start fresh, and someone in the town will be able to give us instructions if Coyne is trying to bootstrap a new ranch around there.’

‘Which he seems to be doing. Remember all the missing calves, the stolen horses. And he will have plenty of money now to go ahead with his grand plans.’

‘Plenty of my money,’ Corrine said fiercely as she swung aboard the white mare again. Sandy noted that she did not say ‘my father’s money’. Of course it was no longer Vincent Skye’s, but it bothered Sandy a little. Sandy swung onto the roan’s back, and as they started on their way across the dry-grass plain, he found himself wondering once again what it was that had Corrine so furious – the loss of her father, the theft of the money from the cattle drive, or perhaps something else?

Was there any possibility that she was enraged because Coyne had broken a trust, a promise to her, that as much as she denied it, there was still something between the two? The sun was still hot and high, the trail long and dusty; his body still ached from the beating he had taken the night before. Sandy Rivers turned his thoughts away from speculation and followed along toward the tiny, distant town of Bigelow, glancing only occasionally at the fine, firm face of the woman beside him, not neglecting to scour the empty land ahead, knowing that there could be men out there wishing to do them harm.

Bigelow was a shabby, misshapen monument to someone’s lost ambition. None of the wooden buildings seemed able to hold itself erect and the entire town seemed to be slumping down, ready to sag into the earth and give up its battle for survival. Sandy and Corrine Skye had the time to take a good long look at it as they angled down a rounded hill where yellow and purple mustard flowers flourished and sumac stood in isolated clumps.

‘It’ll take more than a few cattle to revive this patient,’ Sandy commented, as he guided the red roan in that direction.

‘It is a rather dismal-looking sight, isn’t it?’ Corrine was forced to agree. ‘But look at the town of Durant. There’s nothing to keep it alive but that railroad spur and the cattle that are driven in to the trail head.’

‘There’s no way they will ever construct a spur out to this isolated shack-town. The country’s too rough, and there’s no need for it anyway.’

‘A flourishing ranch can support a small town,’ Corrine believed. ‘That may be what these people are counting on.’ She smiled faintly. ‘I don’t know why else anyone would stay here.’

They had reached the flats and started along what might have been considered a road leading into Bigelow. What it was, was a set of wagon wheel ruts worn deep by constant travel. No wagoner would try to drive outside of them: there would be the constant threat of slipping in and breaking a wheel or axle. And so the ruts grew deeper. As they drew nearer the road became muddy although it had not rained in weeks.

‘Must be underground springs somewhere,’ Sandy commented.

‘That would explain why someone would build here.’

‘Yeah. Keep your eyes open, Corrine,’ he said as they entered the town proper, riding slowly between opposing ranks of rough-timbered buildings.

‘For a hotel, you mean?’

‘For familiar horses,’ he said a little roughly. ‘You know? Four-legged animals sporting a Sky Box brand on their flanks.’

‘You don’t have to get grouchy with me,’ Corrine scolded. ‘I’m tired, that’s all. My first thoughts were on finding a place out of the saddle to rest.’

‘Sorry,’ Sandy muttered, and he was, even if he didn’t sound like it. Corrine was a fine horsewoman, but unlike Sandy she had never spent days and nights on horseback over rough country. And, Sandy reflected honestly, there had been times when sleeping on rough, rocky ground that he would have given a month’s pay to lie down on an actual mattress. ‘I didn’t mean to be rough on you. I guess I’m near as tired as you are. Let’s find a place to put up our horses, then we’ll start looking around.’

‘What if there is no hotel?’ Corrine asked with some trepidation, as she looked at the dreary, weather-beetled fronts of the slump-shouldered buildings they passed.

‘Someone will give us a place to sleep for a few dollars.’ He glanced at her, apologetic and hopeful at once. ‘You must have a few dollars with you, at least.’

‘Father taught me never to go anywhere completely broke, even if all the money you could carry was what you had stuffed in your boot. And you’re working for me, Sandy, remember? Don’t worry about paying our way.’

Father had been right, of course, but it must have been many years ago, if ever, that Vincent Skye had been as flat broke as Sandy was just then. Corrine had probably never gone without anything she needed. Sandy muttered a quiet thanks for wealthy girls. They had just passed a restaurant. Although they had seen no sign on the building, the scents of hearty cooking were unmistakable. Sandy’s stomach rumbled. The roast beef sandwiches and hard-boiled eggs were only a memory now.

The stable was easy enough to find. It sat on the far left-hand side of the street, fifty yards or so from the nearest building. An unseen horse whickered a welcome. Sandy helped a weary Corrine from the saddle and led the horses into the dimness of the building. A small man, bouncy as a rubber ball and almost as round, came out to meet them. Sandy took him for a Portuguese, but could not swear to it. It made no difference anyway.

The stablehand wore a broad, flourishing black mustache and a wide white smile. ‘Hello, hello, gentleman and lady. I am at your service.’

‘Fine. We just want to put the horses up overnight. Give them oats if you have them.’

‘Oh, I have them,’ the little man said, running a hand along the roan’s flank. ‘I see a Rocking R, huh?’ he said, indicating the brand. Stablehands had an intense interest in the brands on the horses they were given. They were a kind of travel guide to them.

‘Far from home range,’ Sandy said. ‘I’ve had him for a long time, and we’ve done some traveling over the years.’

‘Oh, yes,’ the man said, his eyes bright as if happy to have that bit of information. He shifted his attention to the white horse Corrine rode. He traced the brand with his finger. ‘Now, this one I do not know,’ he admitted.

‘It’s Sky Box,’ Corrine said as if slightly offended. ‘We’re not very far from here.’

‘Yes – but no one rides to Bigelow, I think.’

‘Not much reason to is there?’ Corrine asked a little sharply. Then she cooled, looking ashamed of her outburst.

Sandy enquired, ‘So you haven’t seen any other Sky Box branded horses in town?’

‘No, sir,’ the man said, still smiling widely. ‘I would have seen. I see them all. This is a very new, strange brand to me.’

When they left the stable, Corrine was still huffing as if piqued that Sky Box wasn’t as well known in the territory as she had assumed. Corrine had grown up there, saw it every day of her life; they shipped hundreds of cattle every year. To her it was the center of the world. It’s sometimes difficult for people to come to grips with the fact that their own world is a little smaller, of less importance than they had believed.

‘Well, we know that Amos Coyne and his crew haven’t been in Bigelow,’ Sandy said as they rapidly walked across the street toward the heart of town.

‘We only know that they haven’t been keeping their horses in that stable,’ Corrine said logically as they stepped up onto a sagging boardwalk.

‘You’re right,’ Sandy agreed. ‘Where are we heading now?’

The sky was darkening. A cool breeze had risen with the day’s ending. The hunched little town seemed to surround them and sag toward them, the sad old faces of its buildings watching them. The tired wood of the plankwalk was spongy under their boots.

‘I’m hungry, and you must be as well,’ Corrine said. ‘Let’s eat and find a place to sleep, continue on in the morning.’

‘Into the Valley of Death?’ Sandy asked lightly.

‘To wherever that thieving, skulking coyote has his lair!’