Just before the start of roundup, Lassiter met the three men on Brad Sanlee’s death list, all of them tough Texans. Marcus Kilhaven was a tall, raw-boned quiet man of thirty or so with a hand-busting grip. Buck Rooney was heavier, a man with a hearty laugh. He had lost his wife a year before. Jasper Tate, stocky and dark, was the only one of the three with a wife. Kilhaven, for one reason or other, had never married.
Brad Sanlee’s was the last of the five outfits to show up at the agreed site for roundup. Sanlee gave Lassiter a spare nod. Krinkle muttered something and Shorty Doane glared. But neither man made a threatening move.
Sanlee seemed to find the whole thing amusing and later got Lassiter aside as his men were setting up camp, which was away from the others. “I sure was peeved at you, Lassiter, for talkin’ up to me like you done that day in town. So I wanted to have a little fun. I sent Krinkle an’ Doane to tame you down a bit. But seems you’re the one done the tamin’.” Sanlee bellowed with laughter and slapped himself on the knee. But the merriment failed to reach his slate-gray eyes.
“Also your idea of fun to write out those three names?” Lassiter asked quietly.
Sanlee managed to look blank. “Don’t know what you’re talkin’ about. What three names?”
“You’re not much of an actor,” Lassiter said with a tight grin. “You wouldn’t make a dime behind the footlights.”
“Hey, I kinda like you, Lassiter,” Sanlee boomed. He started to throw a heavy arm across Lassiter’s shoulders. But Lassiter stepped aside. He knew that old trick, in case Sanlee was intending to use it—a pretense of friendship, then grabbing a man in a bear hug and holding him while someone like Krinkle or Doane beat him down to his socks.
“You ain’t very friendly, though,” Sanlee said with a short laugh. He stomped over to where his men were spreading their blanket rolls.
For the first time, Lassiter noticed a small tent set a little apart from the bedrolls that were strung out across the cleared stretch of ground chosen for the Diamond Eight campsite. But he didn’t think much about it till later, for the next hectic day he was busy chasing steers from their sanctuaries in the brutal brush. And rousting cows who could be even deadlier than the males. Calves were torn from their mothers and dragged kicking and bawling to the branding fires. There one of the branders would apply the proper red-hot iron to tender hide and ownership established.
There were also mavericks to brand, full-grown cattle that somehow had escaped the branding iron in previous roundups. Over the days, the joint herd at the holding grounds gradually increased. At completion of roundup, cowhands would cut out cattle according to brand for the individual owners.
Sanlee had the most in his Diamond Eight; Chandler was next with his Box C. Then came Kilhaven, Tate and Rooney, much smaller so far as numbers of cattle went, but big enough when it came to acreage. The three of them controlled a great stretch of the brasada to the east of Chandler’s Box C.
What surprised Lassiter was to learn one day that there was a female in camp. Rafael Alvarez, a Chandler vaquero new to the area, mentioned that he had glimpsed her. He winked and exaggeratedly rolled his eyes. They were taking a breather after chasing some big longhorns into the herd. They were standing in the sparse shade of a mesquite, passing a canteen, when Alvarez started to say more about the mysterious female. But Luis Herrera told him in crisp, border Spanish to la boca cerrada, “keep the mouth closed.”
Lassiter wondered at the warning. But he couldn’t get Herrera to explain.
Then it was back to the almost impenetrable brush.
Everywhere was chaos, great clouds of dust from the drying ground, men shouting, steers roaring. And the occasional terrible cry of pain from one of the horses that could freeze a man’s guts. And at times a similar cry from a human. If the wound was not too serious, it was quickly bound. And the wounded man was back in the fray. If injuries were of a permanent nature, the man was paid off and sent on his way. A cruel custom, Lassiter thought, and learned that it had been started by Sanlee’s late father. The other ranchers seemed to go along with whatever custom the elder Sanlee had set.
Lassiter got his first look at the captive woman when he was herding some unruly steers, wanting to get them to the holding grounds as soon as possible because he had no help. So he took a shortcut across the edge of the Diamond Eight camp. That was when he saw her sitting cross-legged on the ground in front of the small tent. She was brushing her long black hair. Upon seeing him so close, her spine stiffened and she dropped the brush and clamped both hands to her kneecaps. She was wearing a faded blue dress.
In what was left of the late-afternoon sun he saw her dark eyes fixed on him with startling intensity—eyes that reminded him of olives freshly fetched from a tub and still moist. They stared hard as if to impart a message, so it seemed to him. A plea for help? That was when he first got the impression she was being held captive.
But the steers demanded his attention and he was forced to move on.
This first week of roundup he heard low-voiced speculation about her, always from newcomers hired on for roundup. But none of the regulars would discuss her at all. However, there was speculation among the new men that she was Brad Sanlee’s woman and he was keeping an eye on her during roundup.
The following day it rained. As Lassiter started his rope-spinning overhead to make a cast, his horse slipped in the mud. Lassiter was thrown heavily. But he was instantly on his feet, dancing away nimbly. However, his pinto, struggling to get up from the muddy ground, took a steer horn in the belly. Its awesome scream knifed through the roundup camps. Entrails of the animal lay steaming where it had fallen.
Lassiter spun from the advancing steer, but it suddenly veered and went ambling into the brush.
With a dry mouth, Lassiter shot the suffering horse through the head. After stripping off saddle and bridle and carrying his rifle, he walked back to camp for a fresh mount. He gave thanks that it wasn’t his black horse in a crumpled heap back in the brush.
It was late in the day when Lassiter, mounted on a chestnut horse, saw some ropers nearby let a wild ladino get away. It went crashing through the brush and across the Diamond Eight camp, scattering pots and bedrolls, bumping against the chuck wagon. Lassiter, who was the nearest, went pounding after it. A perfect cast of his rope pinned the forelegs and dumped the great beast on its nose.
In his rampage, the bull had crushed the woman’s tent. She stood now beside the crumpled canvas, her face white, hands clenched at her sides.
And in those moments when his horse was backing away, to drag the bellowing mountain of flesh away from the chaos it had caused, she was looking at him intently again. She seemed younger than he had thought at first. He saw her lips move in greatly exaggerated fashion. He had never practiced lip-reading, but there was no mistaking her silent message: Help me! Please help me!
But by then, some of the Diamond Eight riders had come up and were cursing the big bull for what he had done to their camp. Brad Sanlee cantered in, saw that Lassiter had the fifteen-hundred pound ladino in hand and gave a jerk of his head in approval.
“See you got the bastard!” Sanlee shouted with a great show of white teeth through his beard.
Lassiter gestured at the woman, really a girl, who stood trembling beside the mound of canvas. “She was likely scared half to death when he got loose,” Lassiter said, wondering at the man’s reaction.
Sanlee didn’t even bother to look at her, but his eyes, with their peculiar shade of gray, seemed to darken. “She’s used to trouble, that one.” He spoke so coldly as if to imply she was a nonentity, not to be discussed.
Sanlee shouted at two of his men to straighten up the scattered bedrolls but made no mention of her tent. She had turned her back and was trying to straighten out the tangle of damp canvas. No one offered to give her a hand. Anger shot through Lassiter at such indifference—the reflection of the attitude of a tough crew to a tough ranch owner, Lassiter supposed. And although he felt at home around such men, one thing he could not tolerate was to see that toughness turned on the weak and defenseless, or to demean a woman as was the case at the Diamond Eight roundup camp.
By then the bull was on its feet. Some of the Diamond Eight riders were herding it in the direction of the holding ground.
Lassiter rewound his catch rope, hooked it over the saddle horn and dismounted. At the moment, he didn’t give much of a damn who might be watching him, but he wasn’t going to stand by and let her try to erect the fallen tent by herself. Night was coming on and she’d have no shelter.
She was pulling forlornly at the pile of canvas when he came up behind her.
“Canvas takes on a lot of weight when it’s wet,” he said, pushing her gently aside. “Let me.”
Her dark eyes flashed to his face and she brushed aside a sheaf of black hair that had fallen across her cheek.
“You shouldn’t,” she whispered tensely, glancing at Sanlee’s broad back just disappearing in the brush some distance away.
“You asked me for help,” Lassiter reminded her as he lifted a ridge pole and the canvas.
“But I didn’t,” she protested.
“I read it plain as day. Please help me.”
She shrugged and said, “Perhaps I did. I was upset.” She stood aside, arms folded, her teeth clamped so that he could see the neat white row they made—not a smile, but a grimace.
Thirty yards away a gray-bearded man hunched over the cook fire was watching him intently. He was the only crew member in camp. Sanlee and the others had returned to the business of roundup.
It took some twisting and stretching, but finally Lassiter got the girl’s tent smoothed out. Soon he was grunting as he lifted the ridge pole with the full weight of canvas on it. When he had the tent righted, he went around it hammering in stakes with a flat rock.
“Thank you,” the girl said without looking at him. She dropped to her knees and crawled into the tent. She lowered the flaps for privacy.
Lassiter led his horse over to the cook fire. The gray-bearded man was stirring the contents of a pot simmering on the fire. He had picked up the pots and pans scattered about by the raging bull.
“First time I ever heard of a woman at roundup camp,” Lassiter said tentatively.
The old man put down a large spoon. His eyes were bright in a seamed face. He jerked at the brim of an old slouch hat and peered into the pot of beans and beef. Then he threw a few sticks of wood on the fire, which instantly burst into flame. A fresh column of smoke was pumped into the sky where it flattened out under the overcast.
“Brad Sanlee seen what you done,” the old man said, not looking up. “He won’t like it worth a damn.”
“Not even you figured to give her a hand with that tent.”
“I lived as long as I have by knowin’ which side of the creek to wet my feet in.”
“Just who is she, anyway?”
The old man limped over to the chuck wagon as if to indicate he’d said all he intended to on the subject.
Lassiter looked back at the tent. There was no sign of the girl.
Then he was back at the holding grounds with its mass of cattle, the branding fires, the shouting amidst sounds of pain and rage from the animals. Although it seemed chaotic with men running about, calves squealing, it was organized. Every man knew his job and did it.
Soon most of Lassiter’s slim crew were drifting in for the evening meal. Others were helping guard the herd to keep it from stampeding. With nearly four thousand head of nervous cattle, it would take only a minor disturbance to set them into a panic run.
As Lassiter slumped wearily to the ground, he thought of the girl. She was pretty enough even in an old shirt and boy’s breeches, her attire for the day. What would she be like with her hair put up and wearing a clean dress? He thought about it. That she was Sanlee’s prisoner, one way or another, was evident. He thought of the last war that had been fought to free slaves. Apparently, the message hadn’t as yet reached Sanlee. Lassiter’s mouth hardened as he recalled her strained face when mouthing her plea for help.
Suddenly, he was striding toward his horse.
“Time to eat, Lassiter,” Luis Herrera called to him from the shadows.
“Be back in a few minutes.”
Herrera gave a worried tug at his silky black mustache. “Where you headin’, anyhow?” Herrera asked.
“Figure to borrow some coffee beans.”
“Hell, we got plenty,” Rudy Ruiz sang out, who doubled as a cook. But Lassiter was already riding away.