The more he watched him in action, the more Rae had to acknowledge that Tom Ford was a master of his trade. Rae could understand now why cattlemen would spare no effort to stamp out even the most petty rustling. Once let it get organized the way Ford had it organized, and it could pick a range clean in fantastically short time.
For that was what Ford was doing to Circle M. With Rae acting as spotter and extra hand on the raids, Ford would swoop down on a herd and, with no waste motion, make it disappear almost as if by magic. Nor did Ford insist on confining his raids to night operations. As it began to become apparent to the Circle M that cattle were vanishing, their riders prowled at night, standing guard. Together, Ford and Rae evolved a technique for daytime raids, striking when least expected and when most Circle M riders were holed up sleeping off their previous sleepless night.
Once, in the most daring move of all, Rae himself infiltrated into the very heart of the Circle M home ranch under cover of darkness. With Ford and his men poised out on the range, Rae, silent, only a darker shadow in black night, touched a match to one, two, three Circle M haystacks. As the hay flared, lighting the night, triggering confusion, drawing in riders from the outlying range, Ford hit, and another seventy head of Circle M beef seemed to disappear into thin air.
Rae himself had a breathless time of it. The night was alive with Circle M men. Yet somehow he slithered his way clear, made it to freedom without being challenged.
“You’re good,” Ford acknowledged after that. “You’re good and you’re smart. I wish you was working with me full time. Together we could make ourselves a pile . . .”
Rae shook his head. “A thousand head,” he said tersely. “That’s the maximum we lift from Circle M, and we’ll be lucky to get half that. But when we’ve got all we can get without having to fight a war, that’s when we break it off. It’s just been luck we haven’t got anybody killed so far—either on our side or on Circle M’s.”
“Luck?” said Ford. “It ain’t luck. Listen, I don’t want any killing any more than you do. It’s bad for business. Oh, if it comes to a fight, we’re ready, but I’d a lot rather keep on the way we’re going, slick and clean, than to have to shoot for my beef.”
Rae was reassured by that. He had become almost haunted by the fear that some night they would run into a trap, that Circle M men against whom he had no grudge, who were only doing their work, fighting for their brand, would be slaughtered—and if they were, their blood would be on his hands. Sooner or later, he thought sickly, it was bound to happen. And what turned his blood cold was the fear that in some such nocturnal battle he might fire at some dark shape who would turn out to be . . . Will.
Rae pulled the mask up over his face.
Like the masks worn by all the other rustlers, it was a black bandanna that left only his eyes unhidden. Day or night, Ford left nothing to chance; all of his riders must go masked.
Ford’s voice was low, muffled. “Everybody ready?”
A murmur of assent came from his riders.
“Let’s move in, then,” Ford said.
It was a black-dark night, and this looked, Rae thought, like the easiest raid so far. He had watched the bunch of fifty cattle all day and had seen no sign of a guard. Nor was the explanation hard to guess; they were not prime stock, and Circle M had its hands full trying to keep an eye on its better beef, held closer in. But the grass would not support the whole Circle M run held in a close area; only the cream of the herd could be guarded; the culls had to graze out to relieve strain on the grass and take their chances.
Now the ghost-file of riders threaded its way down a draw, then fanned out on a flat. Ahead Rae could see the dark blotches of sleeping cattle. Silently Ford’s men went about their work. They got the herd up, bunched, and moving into the draw, traveling well. The night’s march would take some fat off of them, but Ford had ranches at his disposal where they could graze it back on before they were sold.
Rae dropped back to where Ford was urging on his drag riders. “Everything quiet?”
“Seems to be,” Ford grunted.
“This makes about two hundred fifty we’ve picked up so far, total, huh?”
“Closer to three hundred,” Ford said. “But it’s not gonna stay this easy, I’m afraid.” He twisted in his saddle. “We’ve been mighty damned lucky so far. I’ve got a hunch—” He broke off.
“What’s wrong?” Rae asked tensely.
“I don’t know, yet,” Ford muttered. “But something . . .” He jigged his horse and galloped up to the flank, with Rae alongside. “Curt,” he said to the man there, “where’s Doak and Joe?”
Curt twisted in his saddle. “Don’t know. Was here a little while ago.”
“Damn it,” Ford grunted. With Rae alongside, he circled the herd. There was no sign of the missing men.
“There’s something up,” Ford said at last, reining in. “Doak and Joe both—they’re old hands. They wouldn’t have just blundered off and got themselves lost. They shoulda come in off of guard by now and joined the herd. I—”
He broke off, straightening in the saddle. A low whistle, a nightbird’s call, came, from the top of a nearby swell of ground. “That’s them,” Ford rapped. He jerked his horse around. The whistle came again, and he galloped toward it with Rae beside him.
“Here, boss,” somebody said from darkness. Ford pulled up.
“Doak? Joe?”
“Right here.” Figures moved against the darkness. “We caught ourselves somethin’.”
Rae and Ford swung down. “What you got?” Ford asked.
“Circle M man,” one of Ford’s men said. “We were comin’ in to catch up with the herd when we run into him. I ‘tracted his attention, Joe jumped him from behind. Didn’t want to use a gun.”
“No,” Ford said. “You got his mouth tied shut?”
“Gagged good,” one said. “Both hands tied. We got his horse, too.”
“Load him on it,” Ford said. “Bring him along. Keep a sharp eye on him. Any more around?”
“Haven’t seen none. And he swears he’s the only one.”
Ford cursed softly under his breath. “What’s a lone man doin’ blunderin’ around the range at night? Bound to be more.”
“With a cocked gun in his belly, he says not. He’d been in town to see a gal. Took on some liquor, stayed late. He was purty drunk when we nabbed him, but he sobered up in a hurry.”
“Well, he’d better hope nobody jumps us. If they do, he’ll be first to go. Bring him along and well take care of him later.” Ford remounted.
As they headed back towards the herd, Rae said, “What do you aim to do with him?”
“Cut his throat,” Ford said. “What else? A gun makes too much noise.”
Rae pulled in his horse. “No,” he said harshly.
Ford jerked up his own mount. “What?” His voice was full of astonishment. Then, before Rae could answer, he put the animal in motion again. “Come on, we’ll talk it out later. Thing to do now is get these cattle away.”
Two hours of hard pushing later, they were eight, ten miles off Circle M range, in one of a labyrinth of canyons. With three more hours to go to dawn, there was ample getaway time for the herd, but none to waste. There was rock and lava still to cross, where the trail would fade out, baffling pursuit.
Rae had ridden the whole time behind the two men with the captive, watching them carefully. It went against his grain enough to think of killing a Circle M man in heated battle; the thought of standing by to watch one murdered in cold blood could not be borne. He did not know what he would do when Ford finally decided the time had come; but he knew that he could not stand by and do nothing.
But he had no illusions. Ford had already said it to him, as they entered the badlands. “Hell, business is business. And in this business, you don’t leave nobody to talk. We’ll hide his carcass where not even the buzzards’ll find it, and then nobody will ever know what happened to him.”
That had been when Rae had dropped back to keep an eye on the captive and his captors.
Now Ford signaled for a halt. The herd was milled and bunched in the confines of the canyon, given time to blow. The two rustlers reined in, the Circle M captive between them. In darkness and with a gag in his mouth, Rae could not have recognized him even if he had seen him head on, which there had been no opportunity to do. But as Ford walked his horse up, he gave the command: “All right. Somebody strike a light.”
There was pungent sulphur smell and the flare of a match. In its blooming light, which lasted only a moment, Rae got a glimpse of a terrified face, eyes bulging with fear above a bandanna used as a gag. Then darkness again; but he had recognized the man. Clyde: the one who had come up behind him with a gun that first day at Circle M, when Anders had hammered him into the ground.
“All right,” Ford said. “Joe. You do it.”
Every muscle, every nerve in Rae Marsh’s body strung itself taut. “No,” he said.
Ford sighed. “Hold it, Joe. All right. Come over here. Let’s talk.” They rode out of earshot of the prisoner.
“Listen, now,” Ford said with savagery, reining in. “When we’re making a lift like this, I’m the boss, you understand? These are my men, it’s my outfits and contacts we use, we take the risks. So you call the tune on the big picture, but you leave details like this to me, you understand?”
“I understand this,” Rae said evenly. “There’ll be no murder done—not like this.”
“Dammit,” Ford said, his voice still savage, “that ranny knows how many we are; he knows which way this herd has gone . . .”
“I can’t help that,” Rae said.
“He may even have recognized us.”
“Not with masks. Not in this dark.”
“Listen,” Ford said. “We can’t take him with us. And if we turn him loose, he knows how we operate, which way we head—he knows too damned much. He’ll have this range stirred up against us like a hornet’s nest.”
“It’ll be stirred up anyhow,” Rae said. “Crystal’s word is that Anders is combin’ the whole state for gunslingers. He’s buildin’ an army anyhow.”
“No point, then, in givin’ him any more information than he’s already got to help him use it against us.”
“I can’t help it,” Rae said. “You’re not gonna slit his throat like a shoat at hog-killin’ time and leave him for the buzzards. I won’t stand for that.”
“What are you gonna do about it?” Now Ford’s voice was sardonic.
Rae drew in a long breath. His voice was very cold, very hard. “I’ll decide that if you crowd me.”
Ford was silent for a moment. Then he rasped, “Maybe I misjudged you. I thought from the way you handled Boots Hobbs—”
“It’s one thing to down a man when he’s comin’ against you. It’s another thing to cut his throat in cold blood.”
Ford was silent for a minute or two. He moved his horse and Rae tensed; he and Ford were knee to knee now, facing each other. Rae’s hand flexed. He did not want to fight Ford and his men for the life of that captive, but it was beginning to look as if there were no other way out. Ten against one— long odds, he thought bitterly. But Ford would be the first to go. . . .
Almost as if Ford could read his mind, the rustler said, finally, “All right, dammit.” His horse clattered across the rocks. His muffled voice rang out, sharp with anger. “Let him go.”
There were angry protests; Ford beat them down harshly. “I said let him go.” His voice lanced at the captive. “Hombre, you’re gittin’ off light this time. But you run your mouth, it won’t be so light. If I was you, I wouldn’t even go back to Circle M. I’d keep on ridin’ until I was so far away from Fletcher’s Hole the mail couldn’t reach me. You sabe?”
The man gave a muffled grunt.
Ford said: “Untie his hands.”
Then Rae, tensely watchful, fingers still poised by the stock of his Colt, heard the slap of a quirt on a horse’s rump. “Hyahh!” somebody barked; and the animal’s shoes clicked on stone as it galloped back down the canyon.
Ford came back to where Rae was sitting. “Satisfied?”
“I reckon,” Rae said. “Thanks.”
“You won’t thank me when we’ve got an army to fight,” Ford said. “You headed back to Bent’s Crossing?”
“The wide way around,” Rae said.
“Okay. Keep in touch.” Ford turned his horse. “All right,” he barked. “Line ’em out!” Rae held in the bay, as the herd got under way. Then he turned it, swung into a side canyon, and began the long, circuitous ride back to town.