| |
Bent Feather heard the thunder of hooves in the distance and didn’t need to glance to the rest of the Comanche band that trailed along behind him. He turned his paint horse to head higher up along the hill until the whole band could melt into the blur of green from brush and a stand of cedar and oak trees that hid them from the valley below.
He watched the band of mostly young Comanches behind him. Each got low, held and quieted his horse, and waited still as stone for his next command. They were shaping themselves into fine warriors.
The roar of hooves increased as below a band of palefaces road hard past them, without once looking up or spotting the Indian band.
Bent Feather thought and added up what he’d seen. First there had been the band of men who had swept down toward the Comanche camp, just a moment too late since Road Runner had warned them all in time. Then this band rode by headed the same direction. That meant somewhere a lot of cattle were being left alone with few men to guard them. As the sound of hooves below faded into the distance he waved a hand for the others to follow. They were tired, and hungry, but they would eat tonight.
Jobe rode hard at the front of his men, his hat pulled down tight on his head, and the wind tugging at his hair that usually hung to the nape of his neck. Cawley rode just behind him and to his left, a mark of respect since as a Texas Ranger lieutenant he had headed many such a patrol.
Jobe glanced at Cawley, then looked again. Blamed if that fellow wasn’t grinning. It gave him a chuckle to think of Cawley, who had been ramrod stiff and a real stickler for formations and orderliness, now having fun. He rode with the abandon of a true seasoned Ranger. Being sheriff for a spell seemed to have knocked some of the starch from him. Well, good for that.
Jobe’s eyes swept the surrounding hills and mesas. He knew Bo was the eagle-eye of them and would have spotted anything that was seeable. They also knew that when a Comanche doesn’t want to be spotted he can be as darn near invisible as anything ever gets.
The grass spread out in rolling waves around them, maintained for years by the Indians who kept brush out with grass fires. But the buffalo they had sought to preserve were gone. In the place of the bison, once in the millions, cattle now dotted the estate and their numbers grew as the Rangers galloped farther into the spread.
He didn’t know what to expect, but as they neared the former Bentley spread’s ranch house he began to hear shooting, the steady crack, crack, crack of rifles. Jobe slowed the group and signaled for everyone to be ready for action. The eight men behind him, and Cawley, began to spread out. A cavalry group would attack as a unit, but Texas Rangers had learned to fight as the Indians did, man-to-man, and with an unrelenting ferocity.
As he crested a hill he could look down and see Grintly and his men spread out on the ground shooting at the ranch house. Someone had staked horses out of range from the house, except for one or two that had fallen. Jobe could see at least one man sprawled in a way that indicated he wouldn’t rise again either. He glanced to the house, saw that no shots were being returned. Flames shot up from the back side of the house, but with little or no wind the fire hadn’t swept through the buildings the way someone had hoped. Black smoke rolled up from a few broken windows and from under the eaves. Without a pause he headed his group down toward Grintly.
The man looked up, saw who was coming, and held up a hand. His men quit firing, and silence spread over the area, with only the sound of wind rustling grass and the hooves of his group as Jobe approached Grintly.
“I’m glad you’ve come. You can pitch in and help get this rascal out of his lair.” Grintly looked up as Jobe reined in once he was up to him.
“What are you doing here?” Jobe asked.
“I could ask the same thing.”
“I’m an officer of the law, and I’m not the one trespassing.”
“We chased a band of Comanches who were killing calves this way.”
“I don’t see any Comanches.” It still rubbed Jobe that Grintly had interfered with his own pursuit of Bent Feather. “How’s that explain you shooting at the ranch house?”
“Gabe Bentley’s in there. Isn’t he wanted?” Grintly looked to Cawley, who had yet to speak.
“That’s our business. Not yours,” Cawley said. His voice had unflinching hammered iron to it.
“The man is a stagecoach robber and ought to be ‘strung up’ as you say here. That’s for you to see about. You’re supposed to be lending assistance to my needs, aren’t you?” Grintly looked right at Jobe.
“Where did you get that idea?” Jobe said.
“I have friends, and you’re about to find out how high up.” Grintly’s grin slid into a sneer.
“You may also have noticed, though I have doubts, that there’s no return fire coming from the house,” Cawley said.
Jobe glanced toward Cawley, caught a curt nod. They had discussed this, what they had to do, no matter what. “We’ll be glad to help you when you have problems on your property. The thing is, right now you’re trespassing on someone else’s land.”
Grintly’s head rocked back. His mouth hung open. Then he slowly closed it and got his composure back, and his assertiveness. “Isn’t his open range country?”
“Bold words from the person putting up fences.”
Grintly’s eyes opened wider.
“You’re clearly trespassing here, and interfering with a job the sheriff and Texas Rangers are seeking to accomplish. You need to leave this land right now,” Jobe said. “Pronto.”
“Are you asking me to clear out?”
“I’m not asking.” Jobe’s tone grew sterner.
Grintly’s jaw clenched and his eyes sparkled with what could only be raw intense purpose and hatred.
When he finally relaxed just enough to speak through clenched teeth, he said, “I have lost men here . . . and horses.”
“You’ll probably have to double up on some of the horses, and you can either take your fallen with you or leave them to be buried.”
Grintly slowly looked from Jobe to Cawley and back again, as if absorbing every detail to be used later. He turned to Royce Stanley. “Round up everyone. Start them up and I’ll catch up.”
One of the men who’d been sprawled on the ground dusted the dirt off his chest and went to get the horses.
Grintly watched him go, then spun back to Jobe, glared up at him. “I will see that you are fired.” He turned to Cawley. “You too.” You two are done around here. I will use every scrap of power at my disposal, and you may assume it is greater than you can image, to see that you never work again.”
When neither man answered him, Grintly’s face flushed a furious red. He turned to his own group. “Mount up, you men. See to the wounded and dead.”
Jobe didn’t doubt for a second that Captain Marberry was going to get one toasty telegram from the governor and that Jobe had better start looking for a friendly ranch somewhere far away where he could earn his plate of beans. He glanced toward Cawley, saw that he had the same sort of notion. But the sheriff didn’t back down, and neither would Jobe.
He and his fellow Rangers watched Grintly’s posse form up. There must have been twenty of them to begin with. Only sixteen horses were fit to ride. The bodies of three men lay across saddles and at least two more of the hands were wounded bad enough to need help soon. Some men doubled up on the horses. Grintley glared back toward Jobe and Cawley just once, then gave an irritated wave of his arm for the bunch to head back toward his ranch.
Jobe waited until they were out of sight, then gave the order. “Let’s have a look at the house. Check the bunkhouse and stables too.”
He and Cawley stood some moments later inside the bunkhouse, a layer of waist-high smoke spreading across the bunks from the fires that were rapidly ravishing the other buildings. They were looking at the broken window where someone had been shooting out at Grintly’s men. Empty shell casings littered the wooden floor. But whoever had been here was long gone. Bo came in at the far end of the bunkhouse, coughing slightly, and even from where he stood Jobe could see him shaking his head.
“Well, that’s that. They could be anywhere by now.”
“Within riding distance,” Cawley agreed, “but I ‘spect they’re riding right hard.”
They were riding along with the horses still in a flat-out gallop when Lucas glanced back to see Gabe Bentley had reined in his horse and was just sitting there, looking back to where a column of black smoke marked the direction of his family home. Lucas rode closer to where Vin’s horse galloped along and held up a hand, pointed back. They both slowed their horses, then stopped.
“What in blazes?” Vin muttered.
Lucas could see a stand of cottonwoods ahead that marked a steam where he had hoped to water the horses.
He shook his head and turned his horse to ride back to where Gabe sat his horse. Vin came with him. Neither needed to say anything about such tomfoolery since they expected someone to be on their tail at any time.
“What’s the matter with you?”
“You could have stayed and saved the house.”
“We were blamed lucky just to get clear of all that and still have our skins.”
“I grew up in that house.”
“And you were going to die in it.”
“What’s that matter to you two? You think I don’t know what you’re up to?” Gabe nodded toward Lucas. “If you weren’t the sorriest excuse of a highwayman I don’t know what. You never took a cent, red or otherwise.”
“You’re right. The whole point of me tagging along with you was to be sure you weren’t strung up so the land could sell to Grintly. We don’t need another XIT or King Ranch out here that drives every homesteader out. In that, I succeeded famously. You’re alive and still on the loose.”
“But I lost the house and all the other outbuildings.”
“You lost that when you took to robbing people some time ago.”
“You don’t know what it’s like, your father having money but pinching every penny until it squealed like a pig. He always said if we wanted spending money, we had to earn it. So I did.”
Lucas could barely look at the man. He hadn’t grown up in a rich family himself, so maybe he couldn’t understand how someone could expect to have everything by doing nothing. Gabe, big and able as he was, wore the petulant look of a spoiled child who didn’t get his way. He stared back toward the rising black smoke cloud. “You two owe me, and owe me big.”
“I don’t think so.” Lucas could see it in Gabe’s eyes when his head snapped back—hate, anger, and the misguided idea that the world should be handed to him on a platter. He was going to draw.
Gabe’s hand swept down toward his gun. Lucas saw it as clearly as if every second slowed to tick by. He drew and fired. Gabe’s gun was still lifting. His eyes opened wide as he flew backward out of the saddle and he looked down at the hole in his chest and the red beginning to seep from the center of his shirt. Then his eyes closed and he landed on the ground with a thud like a large sack of oats.
Lucas slid his gun back into its holster. He looked at Vin. “You didn’t even draw.”
“Did I need to?”
“I reckon not.”
Vin sighed. “Well, I guess they still can’t sell the estate as long as he’s not found.” He looked up at the hot sun. “Still, I wish we’d have thought to bring along a shovel.”