In a splintered field of rocks he turned west and let the horse pick a path toward the line of foliage that marked the edge of the higher mountains. He crossed a creek and made a wide sweep through the trees into the hills beyond.
On a rise he paused to look back. His eyes moved along the plain and found the plume of dust of the crowd of riders. Somebody in that crew was an expert tracker—in twenty-four hours they had never been more than five miles behind him. The lines on Stryker’s face deepened. He had read these men correctly. Their business was fighting and unless Madrid pulled them back they would not give up their pursuit. Stryker had riding to do.
He saw two or three smaller dust banners out on the plain and, while he sat breathing the weary roan, he heard clearly the thinned reports of three closely spaced gunshots. A rallying signal—they had picked up his tracks again. He had to keep moving.
The sim made him sleepy. The roan crossed the flats at an unfaltering gait. Stryker began to double back on his own trail. He found a stream running crystal-clear through a gravel bed and rode upstream in the water until he came to a line of boulders straddling the creek. He dismounted and led the horse out of the stream, keeping to the rocks. Afterward made a slow turn through the trees, allowing the horse prints to be absorbed in the thick cushion of pine needles.
The air up here was thin and bracing. He followed the natural contours of the land, keeping away from the sky lines. He did a conscientious job of covering his tracks in the next two hours.
A wide curve brought him back on a course parallel to his original flight. This time he was riding in the opposite direction, hoping to pass the searchers around sundown when the light was poor and they would have little chance of spotting him.
Then he ran into bad luck. He had ridden into a pocket thick with overgrown brush when his horse plunged both forefeet into empty air. Washout, he had time to think. Then he was spilling headlong over the horse’s ears.
He hit bottom and pain sliced through him. He smelled blood instantly and felt a burning wrench in his right leg.
With a tough gambler’s need to know, he flung his leg out in a strong kick.
Nothing went wrong—nothing was broken. He was all right except for a bloody nose.
The horse had regained its feet and waited nearby. Stryker climbed back into the saddle and gigged the animal. It began to limp forward.
He uttered a single oath under his breath, dismounted and crouched down to examine the horse’s legs.
Muscle strain, he finally decided. The horse could carry him but not with any speed. It was a bad break.
With an expression of stoic fatalism that the Spartan years had taught him he tugged on the reins and went ahead on foot, leading the roan into the fastnesses of the mountains which seemed suddenly twice as massive to a man afoot.
Two hours after dark he loosened the saddle cinch and left the horse browsing in the woods. He went forward alone, rifle in hand, at a crouching dogtrot through the trees. He had decided an hour earlier that as long as he kept the horse moving its leg would have no chance to regain soundness. The alternatives were to finish his task on foot or to obtain a remount.
Only one source of horseflesh existed in these mountains right now—the Rafter Cross crew that hunted him.
He had circled back on them steadily and knew they could not be far from here. He stopped frequently to turn his ears to the wind and was rewarded presently by the low hum of voices. He pressed forward through the timber guiding himself on the sound, his way lighted by faint starlight that filtered down through the pines.
He came to the edge of a wide clearing and was not surprised to find Rafter Cross bunched here. What did surprise him was the sight of an enormous shadow entering the clearing from the far end. A huge lump of a man mounted on a hairy-legged beast the size of a Clydesdale. It loomed a foot taller and a foot wider than any other horse on the meadow.
Buck Madrid had found his men. He towered over the tallest of his crew because of the height of his mount—he seemed monstrous. His piping high voice rose in an angry pitch.
“You damned bloody idiots! Who’s responsible for this imbecility? Meecham—Meecham, where the hell are you?”
The small gunman separated himself from the bunch and growled reluctantly, “Over here. Hold your horses a minute. We got Stryker bottled up somewhere around here. Found his tracks. His horse went lame. We’re bound to pin him down any minute now.”
Stryker stood in the cover of the trees and decided to wait. With Madrid’s arrival there might be a change in plans. Stryker needed to know what it would be.
Madrid had tenuous control on his anger.
“You’re a pack of stupid pigs, the lot of you. Stryker’s got more brains than all of you put together in a sack. I’d bet my last dollar none of you will see his face until he wants it seen.”
In the trees, Stryker smiled briefly, coldly.
Madrid went on: “And while you fools are doing exactly what Stryker wants you to do Howard Cotten has got his cattle gathered. He’s ready to push them across the river at sunup tomorrow and there’s not a man-jack of you there to stop him.”
A silence gathered. Within it horses shifted wearily and no one met anyone’s glance.
“You’re a brainless pack of hotheaded fools,” Madrid piped reedily.
Ollie Pryor’s voice lashed angrily out of the crowd. “That’s easy for you to say. He didn’t sit up there potting at you with a buffalo gun. You’re right in this—the son of a bitch is as slippery as a watermelon seed. But we’ll get him.”
Madrid snorted. “You had him on the hook before. You let him off.”
Pryor said, “That bastard can’t disappear off the face of the earth.”
“He’ll disappear under it when I’m ready,” Madrid said. “But right now we’ve got other fish to fry.”
Jules Meecham said, “Damn it, you’d better start bein’ a little more careful how you talk. I’ve had about enough—”
Madrid said viciously, “One more word out of you, Jules, and your head rolls right down this mountain. All of you—listen to me. We’re leaving here right now and we’re going to get to Rock Ford before sunrise if we have to kill these horses to do it. Nobody sleeps, nobody eats and nobody opens his mouth until we’ve taken Rock Ford and kept that herd on the north side of the river. Pryor, you bungled two chances at Stryker. I’ll give you one more. Pick two men and stay up here. If Stryker’s horse is lame you ought to be able to find him—if you’ve got anything but pulp inside your head.”
“How can I find him with just two men? It’s a big mountain range to cover.”
“Do it, Pryor. Ask me how later. Now let’s go.”
Madrid’s thick arm rose and fell. The crowd broke into shambling motion out of the clearing. Pryor called out two names and wheeled aside, holding his horse down. Two riders struggled to get clear of the charging pack, turned and rode back to Pryor.
When the crew had vanished beyond earshot Pryor began to complain in a whining voice.
One of the gunmen with him said petulantly, “Cut that out, for hell’s sake.”
Stryker stepped into the clear and made noise jacking a shell into the chamber of his rifle.
He said, “Hike ’em. All three of you.”
A great sigh issued from Ollie Pryor. He swore indistinctly on the same breath. His two gunmen lifted their hands in the air but Pryor snaked out his sixgun. After that he sat on his horse peering into the woods, trying to find Stryker.
Stryker said calmly, “Throw it down, Ollie.”
“Why should I? It’s all I’ve got left now.”
“Put it down or use it,” Stryker said. “You’re looking the wrong way.”
He stepped into a pale pearling of starlight. When Pryor swung his gun around Stryker’s buffalo gun blasted him out of the saddle. The roar of the shot rolled across the meadow and Pryor was dead where he fell.
Stryker said tonelessly, “The same goes for both of you unless you drop your guns.”
The two men gingerly took out their rifles and revolvers and pitched them to the earth.
“Now get off your horses.”
Stryker walked forward, gathered the reins of all three horses. He gestured at Pryor.
“You can bury him if you’ve a mind to. You’ll find my horse back in the trees. He’s lame but he’ll pull together if you let him rest overnight. Ride double or walk. Suit yourselves. But if I see you in this part of the country again I’ll shoot you without any talk. Clear?”
“Clear enough,” said one of the gunmen. “I guess we got no reason to stay here. Not now.”
“Then get on your way.”
Stryker retrieved their guns, watched the two of them tramp away and mounted one of the horses. Leading the other two, he swept out of the meadow at a dead gallop.
At two in the morning on his way up the road toward Circle C, Diego Cruz was alerted by the heavy thunder of hoofbeats swelling behind him. Always a cautious man, Cruz pulled to the side of the wagon road and watched the crowd drum toward him. When they came within recognition distance Cruz put his horse forward and held up his hand, palm forward.
Buck Madrid, astride his great horse, slowed down and halted. Madrid was breathing hard and gave an appearance of acute discomfort. Cruz let none of his spiteful amusement show.
He merely asked “What the hell is all this? You headed for Rock Ford, Buck?”
“To defend my man’s property,” Madrid answered. “It’s legal.”
“Not any more. Cotten’s filed his own claim to that land. You try to stop that herd coming across, Buck, you’ll be the one breaking the law.”
Madrid sat and breathed hard for a moment.
Finally he said, “We’ll see about that. Handy filed the first claim.”
“But Handy abandoned it.”
“Who’s to prove that? Somebody put a bullet in Handy’s elbow, I hear. That means Handy was driven off at gunpoint. How d’you think that will look in court, Diego?”
“All I know is that the law won’t sanction what you’re out to do tonight,” Diego Cruz said.
Jules Meecham put his horse forward, abreast of Madrid’s.
“You figure to stop us?”
Cruz gave the gun crew a long, searching look. Finally he shook his head.
“I ain’t no hero. I’ve said my piece.”
“Then stay out of the way,” Madrid said. “I’ll call for you when I need you.”
He kicked his horse and it lumbered forward, gathering momentum like a steam engine.
Cruz lowered his head and looked at the backs of his hands, folded across the wide flat Mexican horn of his saddle. It was a long time since he had worked cattle.
I have gotten soft—Soft where I sit, perhaps soft where I think. The law does not sit on the fence as you do, Diego Cruz. The law stands for justice and you cannot pretend not to know where justice lies...
He took a long hard look at himself and could not get away from the disgust with which he saw his own weaknesses. And so he finally rode north, breaking away to the west of the road and galloping straight for the river, planning to cross somewhere west of Rock Ford and join up with Howard Cotten.
Somewhere the law had to take its stand.
Switching from horse to horse, Nat Stryker swept into the river valley. But the three animals had been hard-used by their earlier riders and there was little wind left in any of them.
Finally, five miles south of the river, he turned two of the horses loose and kept the soundest of the three, a scrawny Indian paint that seemed to have some invisible resource of energy.
He smelled dust as he raced toward Rock Ford. The bony little horse banged along at a jarring gait but it was eating up miles. He was less than an hour from the ford when he saw the first gray streaks of dawn shoot across the eastern sky. Westward hung a dust cloud made by a single running horse but he had no time to investigate.
He kept on.
A pair of chicken hawks circled in the slowly brightening sky—a grim omen. The sky above them was stained by wisps of cloud like cobwebs. Stryker’s face was weary and dismal, the bones jutting harshly. He spent a hard-riding moment blaming himself. There was a battle ahead for certain and it was a battle he had tried to avert. He blamed himself for the failure but it was characteristic that he was able to clear his mind for the dangers ahead.
A taut and murderous emotionlessness came upon him as he reached the top of the slight rise in the road and heard for the first time the popping of guns ahead of him.
Without hesitation he swung the paint westward and lined out for the river bend. The battle had been joined. It was too late to intervene. Now the important thing was to reach the far side of the river and take command of the Circle C forces.
He approached the river. Gunfire became steady in his ears. He was less than a mile downstream from Rock Ford—did he imagine the smell of powder smoke on the wind?
He ran along the river bank, seeking a safe crossing, gave up the search after two minutes, unwilling to spend the time. He put the paint into the water roughly and felt immediately the sucking grasp of the treacherous bottom against the horse’s hoofs.
The beast floundered, splashing in sudden panic, jerking its head high. Its eyes rolled and Stryker felt it begin to slide, lose its footing completely. Stryker grasped his rifle, whipped his leg over the back of the saddle and slid into the muddy flow.
The current took him under and when he surfaced, blinking, he had a glimpse of his hat wheeling away downstream. The river had more energy than he had thought. He struck out, flailing his boots awkwardly, not willing to walk because the bottom might trap him. With the weight of his cartridge belt and revolver and the great twelve-pound rifle he had a hard time keeping his head above water.
Behind him the horse, freed of the weight of a rider, neighed, snorted and scrambled back toward the nearer bank. It climbed out to stand on the shore, its head hung down in abject weariness, its flanks heaving.
Stryker had little time to pay attention to the animal. He was barely in midstream when his hat disappeared around a bend. Here the current was most powerful and he found himself being swept downstream like a driftwood log. His soaked boots pulled his feet down toward a bottom that might never let go its grip. Stryker put all the grim strength he could summon into thrashing toward the shore which seemed twice as distant as it had before.
When he reached the bank the wind was sawing in and out of him like hot blades. He tossed his dripping rifle to the grass and heaved himself out of the water. When he put his weight on his feet his boots squelched and erupted in fountains. He glanced balefully at the horse standing blandly across the river, picked up the rifle and headed upstream, jogging along the bank.
The gunfire had settled into occasional ragged volleying, indicating that both sides had chosen cover and were picking away at each other from fortified lines.
Stryker’s wet boots were like rocks tied to his feet but he made the half-mile run in five or six minutes, lugging the draining buffalo gun. He was almost within shouting distance when a horseman trotted up behind him.
Recognizing the man, Stryker waited for him to come up. It was Diego Cruz.
Cruz said, “Bunch of damn fools, wanting to get themselves killed for the sake of a few head of cattle.”
“What’s your piece of it, Deputy?”
“Lost my fishing pole,” Cruz said blandly. “Nothing else to do, so I thought maybe I’d pitch in.”
“On this side of the river?”
“That’s right,” Cruz drawled and met Stryker’s glance. He dismounted and said, “Might as well leave the horse here. I can’t afford to buy a new one if this one gets hit by somebody’s wild shooting.” He gave Stryker another look and said, “One time a fella I knew had to take some cats out and drown them in the creek. One of them got away. You look exactly like him.”
“Left my horse in the quicksand to let him work free,” Stryker said curtly. “Let’s go.”
Cruz followed him as he ran on. Now he distinctly smelled gunpowder. Between the occasional bellowing of rifles came the steady sound of a herd of restless cattle trampling the ground and lowing as if in anguish.
Stryker led the way back away from the river and up a slight rise. He saw three or four riders making slow circles around the impatient cattle, shooting quick glances over their shoulders and holding their rifles tightly. Stryker lifted his hand and waved to them. One of the riders pointed down toward the ford, still not in Stryker’s range of vision from this vantage point.
Stryker frowned.
He said to Cruz, “You don’t suppose they made the mistake of forting up down in the trees?”
“Why not? That’s what I’d do.”
“I didn’t buy those long-range guns to pepper away from fifty feet,” Stryker growled.
He turned back toward the river and ran again, disregarding the discomfort his feet suffered in the wet, abrasive boots.
He found Circle C deployed among the trees. The men crouched or bellied, aiming past tree trunks at the Rafter Cross bunch on the opposite side of the river. Several rifles were firing from slits in the stone walls of Lloyd Handy’s hastily built fort—it was only about five feet square but it was as impregnable as Handy had described it. The rest of the Rafter Cross crew was scattered through the trees near the river ford, except for a few riflemen who were firing down from the greater elevation of the long hill behind the stone fort.
Howard Cotten spotted Stryker and Cruz coming down the slope and drew back to meet them. Vern came from somewhere.
Stryker said, “I couldn’t keep them away long enough. I’m sorry.”
Cotten said, “That sounds like just about the first time you’ve ever apologized in your life.”
“Just about.”
Cotten’s face was creased and dark with anguish.
He said, “Bill Stovall’s been shot.”
Cruz asked, “Dead?”
“No, but his collarbone’s broken. I keep wondering if he deserved that in return for the dollar-a-day wages I’ve promised to pay him if I ever get the money. Him and all the rest of them down here.”
Vern’s face, as usual, was red. The bandage on his arm was soiled with mud. Stryker stared at father and son.
He said in a calm voice. “All right. Pull your men back.”
Vern exploded.
“What the hell—”
Stryker gestured toward the river and said to Howard Cotten, “You’re playing right into Madrid’s hands. It’s to his advantage to have a stand-off. Didn’t you see that?”
“He came busting in when we were just about ready to put the first steers across,” Cotten said wearily. “He shot down a couple of the lead steers and drove the rest back. I brought the men down to the river to cover the herd while we drove the cattle back around the hill. We’ve been shooting it out ever since.”
“And you can do it till doomsday for all Madrid cares. As long as he keeps us pinned down here he’s got us whipped. A few more days and the beef market will be glutted. You won’t get ten cents on the dollar for your cattle unless you get them to the railroad right away.” Cotten said dismally, “I had that all figured out for myself. What do you propose we do about it?”
Stryker said, “You’re an old cavalry officer. What would you say?”
Cotten’s eyes flashed momentarily and for a scant instant his back and shoulders stiffened, his jaw jutted. But then he shook his head and his face clouded.
“It’s your party, Stryker. You call the tune.”
Stryker regarded him silently before saying, “I want everybody up there behind us on the hills. Pull them out one at a time, tell them to keep their heads down while others pour on the covering fire. Tell them to get up on what you’d call the military crest—just below the skyline—and try to pick a rock for cover that doesn’t look too much like a tombstone. The range will be four or five hundred yards and I want them to choose their shots with care. Those rifles will hit hard at a longer range than that if the man who’s shooting knows what he’s doing. Tell them to remember what I taught them.”
Cruz said, “Why not tell them yourself?”
“I’ve got a chore,” Stryker said. “And one for you, Vern.”
“What kind?”
“You’ve been asking for action, boy. I expect to give you a taste.”
Stryker saw Howard Cotten’s angry glance touch him, then become protective as it shifted to his son.
Stryker said, “There’s only one thing I can think of that will get those four riflemen out of that stone fort. You and I are going to cross the river and set a brush fire. We’ve got a steady northwest wind. If it holds it should blow the fire right up from the river bank to that long hill above there. It will drive all of them up the hill and we’ll be able to pick them off from back here. The fire ought to burn itself out—there’s not enough brush up there to keep it going.”
Howard Cotten said, “And what if the wind changes?”
Stryker said tautly, “That’s a chance we have to take. When you were an officer you sometimes had to decide to take calculated risks.”
“I took one risk too many,” Cotten said bleakly.
“Maybe it’s time you stopped thinking about that.” Cotten looked up.
“What do you know about my life?”
Stryker said, “We haven’t got time to talk. But think about what I said while you’re getting the men back on that hill. Move. Deputy, pick your spot. And you, Gotten, collect the horses behind the hill where the men can get to them. When things settle down we’ll want to push the herd across fast.”
“What about Madrid?”
“If Madrid’s men come within rifle range of the herd we’ll shoot them down in their tracks,” Stryker said flatly.
He waited with Vern while the deputy and Howard Cotten moved carefully through the trees.
Stryker asked, “Where’s your sister?”
“She went back to ride herd. Look, how are we going to get across the river?”
“Same way I got here. Swim. Have you got dry matches?”
“Sure.” Vern reached into his pocket and brought out a handful of wooden sulphur matches.
“We’ll need oilskin to wrap them in to keep them dry.”
“I’ve got a waterproof tobacco pouch,” Vern said, and produced it from his hip pocket.
“That’ll do. Empty it and wrap the matches tight.” Stryker watched Vern obey, and then said, “How do you feel, kid?”
Vern’s troubled eyes came up.
He said without any bluster, “You want to know the truth? I’m scared.”
Stryker nodded. “That’s the right answer.”