14

Slocum stared at his rope-burned hands and then through the downpour into the river. The way it churned prevented him from getting any idea where Tom Garvin might have gone. Being swept away in that millrace wasn’t the worst way to die, Slocum supposed. Garvin would probably have his head smashed against a rock and drown pretty fast. There was no way anyone could possibly fight the current. With the ravine being cut ever deeper by the flash flood, no chance existed for Garvin to be washed onto a bank.

Slocum wiped water from his face, then backed from the river as another couple feet of once-solid ground collapsed and became part of the deadly current. The mud made it impossible to see down into the water. There was a small chance Garvin might have caught on a root sticking out into the river as the water eroded dirt around trees and bushes.

He backed off another foot when a larger section of the land simply sank, a small eddy pool forming in front of him. Despair filled him at the loss. He had liked Garvin at first, then had come to feel some rancor toward him as his arrogance grew. He was sorry to see a life snuffed out so fast, no matter how he’d ended up thinking of the young man.

Mounting, Slocum rode slowly along the riverbank, trying to get his bearings to return to the herd. Jonesy was a competent drover and would have everything under control, but Slocum felt the increasing need to be done with the drive.

Mostly he wanted to get the herd to market, then return to the Bar M and talk with Christine. Everything from the trail drive had convinced him even more that settling down was a good idea, but he needed to know where he stood with her. Mordecai Magnuson pushed her toward the neighboring rancher’s son. That made economic sense. A spread twice the size of the Bar M had a better chance of surviving. Slocum had seen bad times and good. The Panic of ’73 had driven too many ranchers into bankruptcy. The survivors were the larger ranches.

The Bar M with the Norton ranch would be the largest in the area and control prices for the beeves. It made financial sense for Christine to marry Josh Junior.

It made no sense at all to Slocum if she found the younger rancher as obnoxious as she claimed. The memory of her with Norton at the square dance still burned in his brain, though. They hadn’t danced as if she found him all that disagreeable, though she might have been on her best behavior because both her pa and Norton were there watching. Better to pretend than to cause a scene. Away from the crowd it might be different.

It had to be different. Slocum’s intentions toward her were nothing but honorable.

With a strong hand on the reins to replace Jed Blassingame, Slocum could double the profitability of the Bar M. That had to appeal to Magnuson if his only reason of marrying Christine off was to enhance his income.

The tree in his path caused Slocum to jerk back on the reins. His thoughts had been miles away, and the heavy rain was only now letting up a mite to allow him to see more than a few yards ahead. The wind and rain had stripped most of the leaves off the tree, but the way it bent showed it wasn’t dead.

He stared at it, something bothering him. Why did it bend almost double—and against the wind? It should have bent with the wind.

Returning to the herd prodded him to ignore this small mystery, but curiosity had always been his bane. Slocum rode closer and saw that something had tangled in the upper limbs. From the vibration, whatever was caught surged and ebbed with the water running in the river.

“Son of a bitch,” he muttered. A distant flash of lighting illuminated the tree—and the black rope with silver threads wrapped around the upper limbs. The taut rope stretched downward at an angle into the river.

Slocum dismounted and ran to the tree. Arms around the sturdy trunk, he peered over the embankment into the raging water. The swift stream had washed away dirt around half the tree’s roots. They flopped about like weird wooden brown fingers, but in the middle of the tangle he saw the top of Tom Garvin’s head.

The cowboy clung to his rope with a fierce tenacity that had undoubtedly saved his life. How he had roped the upper part of the tree while being swept along wasn’t something Slocum could figure out. Better to ask Garvin straight out.

Slocum flopped onto his belly and reached out.

“Garvin! You alive? Grab hold. I’ll pull you up.”

A dirty, strained face lifted. Garvin blinked muddy water from his eyes and tried to speak. He choked on a mouthful of river. Spitting it out, he put his head down and pulled hard on the rope. Slocum caught the rope and tried to pull him up. The rope felt as if it were on fire.

He released it, thinking he had too badly burned his hands earlier for this to be a way to save Garvin. Slocum scooted perilously close to the embankment, feeling it yielding under his chest. Slocum hooked his toes around an exposed root and strained to reach down to the surface of the river. As Garvin bobbed up, Slocum caught his wrist and yanked with all his strength. Muscles in his belly protested the load and his knees sank into the soft earth.

But the cowboy shot upward out of the water and crashed down against the tangle of exposed roots. Garvin instinctively wrapped his arms around the wood until Slocum could give another solid pull. Rolling onto his back, Slocum almost threw Garvin onto more solid ground.

The cowboy clung to his black rope as if his life depended on it. Slocum looked upward and knew that Garvin’s life had depended on that rope. Without it being looped around the upper tree limbs, he would have been swept away and drowned.

“You all right? Or as good as you can be after almost getting yourself drowned like a rat?”

Garvin sputtered and spat water, then retched. When the spasm passed, he used the rope to pull himself up to a sitting position under the tree. Blinking hard, he finally focused on Slocum.

“Didn’t expect to see you ag’in, Slocum.”

“That makes two of us. Come on, can you stand?” Slocum got his arms around the man’s shoulders and pulled him to his feet.

Garvin sagged, and Slocum had to strain to support even his slight weight. It surprised him how weak he felt. Pulling Garvin from the river had taken more out of him than he’d thought possible.

“Walk. Get your feet moving.”

“I’m doin’ fine. Let me be.”

Slocum backed off, watching closely, and decided Garvin was right. For a man battered by the water and smashed into the sides of the ravine for a couple miles, he was in good shape. Garvin tugged on the rope and used it to support himself until he could send a wave sailing upward. Slocum jumped back when the black rope came free with only this small twitch of Garvin’s wrist.

“How did that hold you? It wasn’t even looped around the tree, was it?”

“Saved me, Slocum. It damned well saved me.” Garvin clutched the rope to his chest like a lover and cooed to it.

“We’ll have to ride double,” Slocum said, unnerved by Garvin’s actions.

Garvin coiled his rope and, by the time Slocum had stepped up into the saddle, was ready to swing up behind. He held the rope in one hand and circled Slocum’s waist with the other. Sagging, he almost fell off the horse but caught himself in time.

Slocum rode slowly, aware of how Garvin clung to consciousness by a thread. It took almost an hour of wending their way through the still considerable rain to find the herd. Riding into the small camp caused the cowboys there to gape in wonder.

“You looked like a drowned prairie dog,” Jonesy said, staring up at Garvin.

“Help him down. He’s still feeling a bit rocky.” As if to prove Slocum’s point, Garvin fell off the horse. Jonesy caught him, staggered back, then lowered him to the ground.

“Don’t reckon gettin’ muddier is a concern. Swear he must have river water in his veins by now.” Jonesy looked hard at Slocum. “You pulled him out of the river?”

“Get him by the fire.” Slocum looked around. The rain made it impossible to light a fire. “Put a blanket over him, then cover that with a slicker. Catching pneumonia and dying would be a crying shame after what he’s been through.”

Jonesy tried to pry the rope from Garvin’s grip and got a feral snarl as a warning.

“He’s strong enough to do that himself.” Jonesy walked off to huddle with the other cowboys. They cast occasional frightened glances in Garvin’s direction.

Slocum set about doing what he’d asked Jonesy to do. Garvin wouldn’t appreciate it, but it was the right thing to do. Once the cowboy was covered, Slocum stepped back and stared at him, wondering what dreams ran through the man’s head. A curious smile and a look of triumph made Garvin look like he was the cat that had just eaten the canary.

“Rain’s lettin’ up, Slocum,” Jonesy said. “You want to press on? We kin make a couple miles ’fore it gets too dark.”

“The ground is slippery. Let the sun come out and dry it up a mite,” Slocum said. “Tomorrow is good enough. Let the cattle rest up. They’ve got more travel ahead of them.”

“Knowin’ where they’re goin’, they ought to want to ride on the trail forever,” Jonesy said, chuckling.

“That’s why they don’t know,” Slocum said. He looked back at Garvin and wondered if the same was true with the sleeping cowboy. Did he know where he was going and should he just keep riding rather than arrive at the slaughterhouse?

* * *

“The weight’s burnin’ off the beeves,” Jonesy said. “Mr. Magnuson ain’t gonna like the condition they’re in.”

“He can leave them in a feed lot for a day or two if that’s a concern,” Slocum said. “He won’t find these cows in any worse shape than those brought in from other ranches.”

“I don’t know. Norton started earlier. His herd might not have gone through the rain.”

Slocum couldn’t believe how difficult it had been moving the herd after the rain. The sun hadn’t come out to dry the soggy ground, forcing the cattle to use extra energy to slog along. Grass had been harder to locate, and the beeves had turned balky. Rather than one day to get to the railhead, it had taken three. Still, in spite of the struggle or maybe because of it, Slocum didn’t think he had ever seen a prettier sight than the stockyards and the nearby rail yard with two locomotives parked, long strings of empty cattle cars waiting for their freight.

“I’ll go tell Magnuson we’ve arrived.”

“Reckon he’ll be at the broker’s office,” Jonesy said. “That’s the building off to the side, away from the pens.”

“You want to come along?”

“Naw, I prefer the company of the steers. Listenin’ to them ranchers lyin’ through their store-bought teeth gives me the collywobbles. Just git us our money and all will be jist fine.”

Garvin spoke up. “I’ll go with you. I want to hear how they dicker.”

“Still thinkin’ on bein’ foreman?” Jonesy asked.

“I will be. You wait and see.”

Jonesy laughed and the mirth rippled through the other trail hands. Garvin bristled. When he rested his hand on the S&W at his hip, Slocum said, “Come on along, Garvin. They can handle the cattle for a while without us.”

“Sons of bitches. I’ll show ’em, I’ll show the whole damned lot of them!”

“We’ve been on the trail for ten days,” Slocum said, “and everyone’s tuckered out. Losing Hashknife and the chuck wagon wore on everybody, too.”

“They’re a bunch of—”

“Come on,” Slocum said sharply. He regretted asking Garvin to accompany him, but letting him stay with the others would create friction that too easily might erupt into gunplay. Jonesy wouldn’t take any guff off Garvin, and Garvin was itching to get into a gunfight.

Tom Garvin took the loop of his rope and slid it over his head, wearing it like a Mexican bandido with his bandolier. With it over his right shoulder and dangling at his left hip, he kept his S&W handy on his right side.

Slocum rode slowly through town, feeling the expectation all around. There was a nervous tension among the townspeople that was communicated to him. They were anxious for the cowboys to spend their money. They made huge profits off brokering the sale of the herds and the shipment back East, and the citizens were all counting on earning enough to live an entire year until the next trail drive.

“They’re all starin’ at me. They think I’m a nuthin’,” Garvin said.

“You aren’t anything,” Slocum said. He hurried on when Garvin bristled. “Jingle some silver dollars together and you’ll be their best friend in the world.”

“I don’t pay for my friends.”

Slocum refused to rise to the bait. Garvin was spoiling for a fight, and he wouldn’t give it to him. He settled down in the saddle and rode slowly, hunting for the building Jonesy had mentioned and getting the feel of the town. After the time on the trail, so many people crowded in on all sides. He both liked it and feared it. Open horizons and empty prairies were more to his liking than people all crowded together.

“There,” he said. “You want to watch the horse.”

“Think they’d steal ’em?” Garvin set his jaw and would gun down anyone getting too close.

“Not with you looking so fierce,” Slocum said.

Garvin frowned, not sure how to take the words. Slocum didn’t give him time to decide. He dismounted and went into the office. The large room was lined with desks, clerks poring over their ledgers. At the far side a better-dressed man who might have been a banker sat back smoking a cigar. Across the desk from him Mordecai Magnuson puffed furiously on a stogie of his own. The broker pointed at Slocum with the lit end of his cigar, said something to Magnuson, then puffed away so hard his face vanished in a cloud of blue smoke.

Slocum strode over, touched the brim of his hat, and said, “Herd’s out by the pens, Mr. Magnuson.”

“Took your sweet time getting here, didn’t you, Slocum?”

“We had some trouble.”

“Tell me later. How many head did you lose?”

“Not more than a hundred.”

“That’s good, but you ran all the fat off them, didn’t you?”

“It was a harder trail than you said.” Slocum worked to keep down his anger. Garvin had irked him, but Magnuson went out of his way to needle him.

“Blassingame should have been foreman.”

Slocum was in no mood to argue the point. Losing the cook and so much equipment, staying on the trail with only the food scavenged from the destroyed chuck wagon, the rain, and the rest had worn his temper thin.

“You ready to pay us?”

“You’re jumping the gun, Slocum. I need to negotiate with Mr. Dunlap before that.”

“How long’ll it take?”

“You got yourself a pushy trail boss, Mordecai. I can’t blame him, though. It’s always good to be paid for your hard work.” Dunlap craned to one side and peered around Slocum. “There’s my appraiser. Let’s see what he has to say.”

Dunlap’s man had waited for the herd to be put into pens, then he counted them and gave his estimate of the value. Slocum stepped back and let the rancher and the broker dicker. The size of the settlement made him wonder if a bonus might not be in the offing. He watched Dunlap count out stacks of greenbacks, then hand over a large leather sack filled with twenty-dollar gold pieces. This went into Magnuson’s coat pocket. The paper money would be used to pay the trail hands.

“Thank you, Mr. Dunlap,” Magnuson said, standing. “Always a pleasure doing business with a gentleman.”

“Take a few more—to get you back home to your own supply,” Dunlap said, pushing a box of cigars to the rancher.

“Come on, Slocum. We got some settling up to do.” Magnuson strode out, not waiting to see if Slocum trailed along behind.

They stepped into the bright sunlight.

“You go on, Mr. Magnuson,” Slocum said. “My cinch strap needs tightening. I’ll catch up in a minute.” Slocum put his hand against his horse’s side to keep it in place. The broad leather cinch had been cut almost through somewhere on the trail. He could ride a little while longer, but before returning to the Bar M, he had to get the saddle to the town saddle maker for repair.

Magnuson grunted and mounted his horse. Garvin hastily joined him, riding alongside. What the two men might have to say baffled Slocum, but they were talking as if they were old friends. He shrugged it off and saw where one of the holes in the leather cinch had torn, making the saddle slip. Driving his knee into the horse’s belly to be sure it had emptied its lungs, Slocum cinched the saddle down one more notch. It wouldn’t be comfortable for the horse, but Slocum didn’t expect to ride this way very long.

As soon as he got paid, he’d have it fixed properly.

Gunshots echoed from the direction taken by Magnuson and Garvin. For a moment, crazy things flashed through his mind. Garvin had shot Magnuson. Magnuson had shot Garvin. Slocum swung into the saddle and galloped after them.

He found them in a side street. Two men moaned and writhed about on the ground.

“Road agents, Slocum, these road agents tried to rob Mr. Magnuson but I stopped ’em!” A smoking six-gun in Garvin’s hand gave mute testimony to that.

“Why were you not riding along with us, Slocum? Never mind. Garvin saved me from being robbed—and saved your pay. You and the rest of the crew ought to thank him.”

By now the marshal and two deputies had come running up, waving sawed-off shotguns around. They were getting ready for a bunch of rowdy cowboys in their town and were loaded for bear.

Slocum watched the lawman get the two robbers to their feet and move them along to the town lockup. He had made a point of getting a good look at the robbers’ faces. Neither was a member of Pendergast’s gang.

He almost dared to hope that Pendergast had moved on. But Slocum knew that wasn’t likely with so much money from the cattle sale to be stolen. When the other ranchers put their year’s income into the town bank, Pendergast would strike then.

Slocum started to warn Magnuson, but the rancher cut him off with a brusque wave of his hand. Trailing the rancher and Garvin made him feel like a servant, but he did work for Magnuson.

And there was the matter of his boss’s daughter. Slocum couldn’t forget Christine, no matter how poorly her pa treated him.