TO GET TO the cabin Pete Ramirez had described, they had to cross a corner of the Concho. It was midafternoon by the time they reached this stretch of hills, and if Chris was almost reeling with faintness from the punishing ride, he did not show it on the surface.
When they topped a ridge, they could see a pair of horsemen half a mile below, directly in their path. The two riders were hazing a small bunch of steers up the valley. When Chris and Johanna dropped off the skyline, a hillock intervened, and they lost sight of the two horsemen until they came over a nearer rise and found themselves within fifty yards of the little herd.
The two horsemen were Clete Sims and Chris’ brother, Boyd.
The shock of recognition hardened Boyd’s face. Chris heard Johanna’s quick indrawn breath. Boyd stopped his horse and sat the saddle squarely, a block-hewn giant of a man with his hat brim cutting a straight shadow across his eyes.
Boyd said, “I thought you’d cleared out of the country.”
“I couldn’t have crawled out of here,” Chris said. “But I guess you know about that.”
Boyd put his horse forward, threading among the steers until he reined up a few yards away. “Know about what?” Johanna said, “When Chris left here, a couple of toughs jumped him in the dark and beat him within an inch of his life.”
“One way to pay me back for that licking, hey, brother?” Chris said.
“I don’t know what the devil you’re talking about,” Boyd snapped.
Chris looked beyond him and saw Clete Sims watching with troubled concern. Chris said, “You’re a good man, Clete. I don’t know why you go on working for this buzzard.” Johanna said sharply, “That’s no way to talk about your own brother, Chris.”
“Aagh,” Boyd grunted, “he never did have the sense of a hydrophobia polecat.”
Johanna was plainly restless, looking northward toward the badlands. All afternoon, she had been urging her horse on. Chris said, “I’ve got business to take care of right now. But I’ll be back.”
“Sure,” Boyd murmured. “But if you’re smart, you’ll keep right on going. Remember what I told you.”
“I remember a lot of things,” Chris said, and wheeled his horse away, cantering around the end of the little herd with Johanna at his stirrup.
When they were out of earshot, Johanna said, “Maybe you ought to think again about your brother, Chris. He seemed surprised to see you with me, and he didn’t seem to know anything about the two men who jumped you. I don’t think it could have been Boyd who sent that note.”
“We’ll see,” he said. “You let me take care of that.”
They rode on in silence until, ninety minutes later, they weaved their horses through the tortuous bends and breaks of the waterless badlands and came upon the lonely shack. It was a tumbledown ’dobe, long deserted, half its roof caved in. There were no horses or men visible anywhere; the place looked as if it had been deserted for years. Chris braced himself to face Johanna’s disappointment when she would find the place empty.
But it wasn’t empty. Gagged with a knotted handkerchief, bound at the wrists and ankles, old Anse Fuller sat tied to the spokes of a rickety chair in the center of the bare room. The westering sun came through the doorless opening and splashed illumination across him.
With a sob, Johanna rushed to him and feverishly began to undo the knots. “Oh,” she cried, “I’m all thumbs. Pa … Pa?”
Chris pushed her gently aside. Taking out his clasp knife, he easily severed the binding ropes and with gentle hands untied the gag.
Old Anse rubbed his wrists and grinned with undiminished defiance. “It’s about time!” he said, and laughed.
Anse was a big man, not gone to easy flesh. His cowhide-tough skin was stamped with creases as though he had slept with his face pressed against a rabbit-wire fence. “Chris, damn it, I sure can’t say I ain’t glad to see you.” A wide grin split his face.
“Pa,” Johanna said, “what happened to you?”
“That’s gonna require a long palaver,” the old man said, “and first I could use a drop of water.”
Chris went out to fetch his canteen. When he came back into the half-ruined shack, Johanna was standing with her cheek against her father’s. “I’m so glad you’re all right, Pa.”
Chris gave Anse the canteen and watched with satisfaction while Anse drank. “Not too much at once,” Chris warned.
“Oh, I’m all right,” Anse said. “I ate this morning. Ain’t been too long since they pulled out.”
“Who?” Johanna demanded.
“I dunno who they were,” Anse admitted. “They kept their faces covered up. Two of ’em. One of ’em had a pretty bad cough.”
“Carson Denver,” Chris murmured grimly.
“Maybe,” Anse said. “I don’t recognize the name—must be a stranger to me. They talked like maybe they was Concho hands, but that was kind of a puzzle, on account I know all the Concho boys, and it wasn’t none of them.”
“What did they talk about?” Chris asked.
“Well, one night a few days past, they probably figured I was asleep. They was outside, hunkered down by the wall, and I heard them bragging about how your brother Boyd was planning to move onto the free graze roundabout with a show of force—graze that you and I both know’s been used by common consent by a bunch of little ranches around the edges of the Concho. One of these hairpins said Boyd had just bought out Bill Santee’s outfit.”
“That’s true,” Johanna said. “He did. I heard about it in town the other day. Santee disappeared right after he sold out to Boyd.”
“Well, now,” Chris breathed. “Think of that.”
Anse said, “That mean something to you, boy?”
“Could be.”
Chris frowned and patted his pocket for cigarettes, then remembered he didn’t have any left. He said, “How’d these two come to take you prisoner?”
“You mean how, or why?”
“Both.”
“I don’t know why, unless it might’ve been because I was always a friend of yours, Chris, and I never trusted Boyd any farther’n I could throw him. Maybe Boyd figured I might know something against him—me being a shrewd old cuss. He knew I’d been lookin’ out for you, keeping my eye on the Concho. I owed that much to your old man.
Maybe I pestered Boyd too much, and he wanted me out of his hair, or maybe he didn’t want me to talk to you.”
“About what?”
“I don’t know any more than what I’ve already told you.”
His brain wheeling with suspicions, Chris said, “Well, I know this much. It gives me a lot of chores. I want to get my hands on Carson Denver and squeeze the truth out of him. But right now, let’s get you home, Anse. On the way, you can tell us how they got you out here.”
It was a straightforward enough story: the two abductors had simply taken Anse at gunpoint from his stable, gagged him, and brought him at night to this abandoned badlands shack. Never had they given any explanation, other than to say he would not be hurt if he behaved himself. “I didn’t have much choice,” Anse admitted. “I’d of fought if I could’ve gotten a hand free, but those buzzards know how to tie a good knot.”
Coming into town the back way that night, they saw a dark figure coming down the back stairs from the second story of the bank building, where Ford Cooke’s offices were. That was Pete Ramirez, and for a moment Chris wondered what business the Cavanagh cowboy might have with Cooke.
In the morning, stiff and aching from the long ride yesterday on top of his still unhealed bruises, Chris went up to Cooke’s office. On his way into the bank, he was met by Vera, on her way out. Her face was flushed.
She said, “Boyd told me he met you yesterday. He’d thought you’d left for good.”
“And you,” Chris said, “what did you think?”
“I wondered where you were, that’s all.”
“Boyd should have known better,” Chris said. “What brings you into the bank at this hour?”
For some reason, she grew angry. “Just what business is that of yours, Chris McLean? I don’t have to answer to you for my whereabouts.” She swept out of the bank with her chin lifted.
Chris looked after her, puzzled. She drew his excitement, and that feeling increased his anger against Boyd, who had robbed him of everything.
With effort, he climbed the stairs and went into the lawyers office.
Cooke was glad to see him. “Where the devil have you been?”
Chris explained what had happened to him. Cooke said, “Well, damn it, why didn’t you let me know where you were? I’ve been worried about you, Chris.”
“I’m all right, as you can see. Ford, I need a favor.” Cooke went around his desk, sat, and produced his bottle of Kentucky Sour Mash. “Drink?”
“No, thanks.”
Cooke drank from the bottle and set it down. His handsome face seemed preoccupied. He said, “What’s this favor you want, Chris?”
“How much do you know about Carson Denver?”
Cooke’s eyes widened. “I’ve seen him a few times. I told you my suspicions.”
“That he might be working for Boyd?”
“That’s right.”
“I’m pretty sure he is,” Chris said, “but I want proof. I want you to help me find Denver.”
“He’ll be a tough cookie to find if he doesn’t want to be found,” Cooke warned.
“I know. But he’s my only opening. If Boyd’s paying him, I can offer him more. Between that and the point of my gun, I might be able to convince him to talk.”
Cooke shrugged. “Maybe it’s worth a try. All right, I’ll cast around and see what information I can pick up.”
“Thanks,” Chris said. “There’s one other thing.”
“Go ahead.”
“This is getting to be a pretty hot place to stand, in my boots. In case anything happens to me, I want my Concho interests protected. I want to make out a will.”
“That’s my job,” Cooke said with a grin. “Who’re your heirs going to be?”
“Anse and Johanna Fuller.”
Cooke showed his surprise, but made no comment. He drew up a last will and testament at Chris’ direction, and when it was completed to Chris’ satisfaction, they went downstairs to have a couple of bank employees witness Chris’ signature.
Afterward, Cooke said, “Come on up for supper tonight. You never did make it last week.”
“All right, I’ll take you up on it.”
They shook hands and Chris, aching all over, went outside into the blaze of fall sunlight. He turned down the boardwalk, and all but ran into a forward-rushing fat man: Marshal Carlos Riva.
“Well, now,” Riva said with what almost became a leer. “Just the gent I’m looking for.” And then, with no warning, Riva drew his gun and planted it squarely on Chris’ chest. “I’m taking your gun,” Riva said. “You’re under arrest for the murder of Bill Santee.”