The Ellsworth Trail Page 6

  He had left Chad to scout ahead of the first herd, telling him to find a place to bed down the group that was far short of ten miles from their starting place. It was the best he could hope for, maybe five or six miles, giving him time to bring the other two herds in behind them into a single bunch.

  Now Jock called over to the lead drover of the first herd, a man named Vic Cussler; a lean, rawboned man with a face leathered by the sun, the lines next to his eyes like thick, tough cords, his thin mouth a slit in his hatchet-chiseled face, aquiline nose broken in at least two places.

  “Cussler, let’s you and me pick out a lead steer that won’t run back to home ground.”

  “Jeez, Kane, I thought I had me a good one picked out, horns as long as an oak limb, mean-eyed, slat-ribbed, long-legged sonofabitch.”

  “Well, your lead steer was the first to bolt, wasn’t he?”

  “Damn right. I’d like to kill that sonofabitch if I could ever find him.”

  “We won’t be killing any cattle, Cussler. Let’s just find another one more willing to go to Kansas.”

  When they got the herd milling, Jock and Cussler rode slowly around the perimeter, both observing the behavior of those cattle nearest to them. Jock knew they couldn’t cover the whole herd, but he hoped to find a lead steer in one of the milling bunches.

  “What exactly are you looking for?” Cussler asked. “One with a lot of horn? Big-boned? A runner?”

  “I’ll see it in his eyes,” Jock said. “Look over there. Look at the ones watching us. I’m hoping one will break and come out of the pack with fire in its eyes.”

  “Hell, a lot of them will do that, Mr. Kane.”

  “Call me Jock, will you? Mr. Kane was my father.”

  Cussler chuckled. “All right, Jock. I had what I thought was a good lead steer picked out. I don’t know what happened.”

  “You probably did. Sometimes you don’t get one the first day, or even the second. I think I found a good one last night, but I could be wrong. We’ll know more tonight and even more in a couple of days, whether or not I chose the best lead cow.”

  They rode very slowly, both looking at bunches of cows, and individuals. Some grumbled at their passing, letting out low timorous sounds, or snorting at them, pawing the ground. None of the cattle broke ranks, however.

  Then, ahead of them, one of the steers trotted out of the pack. It didn’t have the longest set of horns, nor was it as big as some of the other longhorns. But there was something about the way it stepped out that caught Jock’s eye.

  “Let’s take a look at that one,” he told Cussler.

  “Looks right ordinary to me, Jock.”

  “We’ll see. Look at the other cattle. They’re watching him.”

  “Yeah, you’re right. Some of them are a-looking at that one.”

  Jock reined up and yelled at the lone steer standing outside of the bunched herd. “Ho boy!”

  The steer swung its head and looked at both men. Cussler had halted his horse, as well.

  Jock reined his horse to the left, turning it, touched his spurs lightly to its flanks. The horse stepped out a few feet. The steer started to follow it. Other cattle in the herd pushed through the outer flanks and started to follow the lone steer. Jock reined up and the steer halted, glaring at horse and rider.

  Jock repeated the action, making his horse travel a bit farther before reining it to a halt.

  The steer followed Jock and several other cows separated from the herd and started to follow, also. Then the entire line of cows turned and fell into step.

  Jock had his lead steer. He turned to Cussler and beckoned to him.

  “You’ll be all right now, Cussler?”

  “Looks like it. Thanks. Say, I heard you and Quist got into it and you made him eat some dirt.”

  “My fist slipped,” Jock said, a wry smile playing beneath the shadow of his cigarette.

  “Yeah,” Cussler said. “I wouldn’t trust Quist as far as I could throw that steer there.”

  “Well, trust is a pretty big thing. I don’t lay it on many men. Be seeing you, Cuss,” Jock said, feeling a familiarity with the man now that they had found a lead steer together and the morning was smoothing out.

  “Yep, Jock. You be careful, hear?”

  Jock waved good-bye and set out to find the other herd that had turned back. When he did, they were already breaking from the milling circle and headed north in the wake of the first bunch. He rode to the head of the herd and ran into Dewey Ringler.

  “I see you got yourself a leader,” Jock said. “That old mossy-horned cow.”

  “Yeah. How’s Cussler doing?” Ringler wore his hair short-cropped under a battered felt hat that had long since lost its original blocking. It wasn’t a Stetson, but it did give his face some shade. Ringler had crackling blue eyes and a set of good teeth that he kept polished with cigarette ashes. He had a warm smile and seemed a friendly sort.

  Jock stretched up from the stirrups and looked back over the herd that was untangling itself beneath a sea of horns.

  “You got them moving, Dewey,” Jock said.

  “Yeah, but it’s been a bitch willy of a morning, I’ll tell you. We still got men rounding up strays. Some five, six miles away. These cows just don’t want to go nowhere.”

  “Think you can handle it?” Jock asked.

  “We may leave a few behind, but we got most of them. If they don’t spook, we’ll catch up to that front herd before nightfall.”

  “Before sunset, Dewey. I don’t want to be chasing cows in the dark.”

  “Well, you’re the boss. I just wish the cows knew that.”

  Jock laughed. At least Ringler had a sense of humor, dry as it was. Ringler never cracked a smile and Jock saw the sweat on him, soaking through his shirt and glistening on his forehead, slick as oil on his hands and forearms.

  “And I want every stray picked up and returned to the herd,” Jock said. “Got that?”

  “Something you ought to know, Kane.”

  “Yeah?”

  “Take a ride with me. I want to show you something.”

  Jock watched as Ringler looked around as if to get his bearings. Then the drover rode off to the south and west, his head bent, eyes scanning the ground. Ringler touched spurs to his horse’s flanks and put the animal into a trot. He headed for a clump of prickly pear. When he reached it, he circled, then halted his horse. He swung out of the saddle and dropped his reins. Stooping over, he picked up something that was on the ground.

  “What is that?” Jock asked as he rode over and looked down at the object in Ringler’s hand.

  Ringler handed a stick of milled wood up to Jock.

  “I think we got us a traitor,” Ringler said.

  Jock turned the piece of wood over in his hands. There was a large twenty-penny nail driven into one end, with blood on the tip.

  “I chucked it over here after I found it,” Ringler said. “These cattle didn’t go to running on their own. Somebody made sure they spooked.”

  “I’ve never seen anything like this,” Jock said.

  “It’s a kind of cattle prod,” Ringler said. “Homemade.”

  “You mean . . . ?”

  “I mean somebody rode through this herd early this morning, a-swinging that stick with the nail in it and set the cattle to running. It probably took only one cow to set the others off. Somebody wanted to hold us up.”

  “Who?”

  Ringler shrugged. “I have no idea,” he said. “I didn’t see it happen, but one of the strays I rounded up near here had blood streaming from some holes in its hip. Flies were sucking on the blood. Whoever did it, drove that nail in pretty deep.”

  “Yeah,” Jock said. He looked at the nail again, and touched a finger to the tip. It had been sharpened with a file and was very sharp.

  “I heard a cow bawling its head off just before the herd bolted. I couldn’t make out where it was and I didn’t see nobody around. Next thing I knew, the whole bunch was scattering, running
at top speed.”

  “I’ll keep this,” Jock said. “See if anyone else knows about it.”

  Ringler caught up his horse and climbed back in the saddle. He looked at Jock as he rode up.

  “Kane, you probably won’t ever find out who made this prod, but you got a rattlesnake riding to Kansas with us. This ain’t all he’s going to do.”

  “No, you’re probably right,” Jock said. “But I’ll find out who’s trying to hold us up. He’ll give himself away, sooner or later. Meantime, you keep your eyes peeled. Let me know if any one of the hands in your bunch does something that doesn’t look right. Rides off by himself or fools with the cattle, or comes up with another of these prods.”

  “I can’t watch everybody and do my job,” Ringler said.

  “No. Just keep a lookout.”

  “I will.” Ringler rode off to tend to the herd, leaving Jock to ride on ahead and scout.

  Jock stuck the prod in his saddlebag, the smooth end jutting out. He didn’t want anyone to see the nail until he was good and ready.

  Meanwhile, he wondered if Chad knew that someone in his hire was working for Torgerson. For that was the only one Jock could think of who had something to gain by making sure Chad’s cattle didn’t reach Ellsworth before Torgerson did.

  It was one more worry in an already worrisome day.

  Chapter 11

  Abel Kane was surprised that his brother Jock had taken the trail boss job for Becker. When Torgerson told him, Abel had concealed his surprise and played dumb. But now it was something he had to think about.

  How was he supposed to know that damned Twyla had a bad ticker? Nobody told him about her heart. All he’d wanted was a little taste of that sugar. Besides, he was drunk and Jock hadn’t ought to have blamed him for something that came natural to a man. Twyla was one good-looking woman and she made a lot of heads turn. Men’s and women’s.

  He had seen the murderous look in Jock’s eyes when Twyla had died. It made him shudder now to think of it. But he hadn’t meant any harm to Twyla. Jock just didn’t understand. It was living out there on that ranch, so far from town, working so hard every day from can’t see to can’t see, and then having that beautiful woman around. Jock’s woman.

  Abel hadn’t meant to do anything more to Twyla than to kiss her. But when she resisted, that made him all the more excited—then it became a challenge. He had wanted more, and he was half drunk and sexed up, so he just went ahead and put the boots to her. Then Jock had come in and caught them. It was a blur after that—he remembered hearing Twyla say something, then she was crying and Jock was holding her in his arms, shouting at him. He had heard Jock say he was going to kill him for what he did, so Abel lit a shuck. He knew his brother that much. If Jock said something, he sure as hell meant it.

  But now it seemed he couldn’t get far enough away from Jock, no matter how hard he tried. Maybe Jock wasn’t hunting him, exactly, but sooner or later Jock would find out where he was. That was what he rode with now—the knowledge that Jock would track him down and exact revenge for Twyla’s death.

  Abel cursed aloud, just thinking of those things. Thinking of Twyla and how she had fought him and how he had taken her anyway, knowing he had no right, but knowing she had been taunting him with her beauty and driving him crazy with the way she walked and talked and moved. Damn her. Damn Jock.

  He was used to the darkness. It gave him comfort now. In the distance, a choir of coyotes wafted their song across the plain, and it sent a thrill through him for some unknown reason. There was enough light from the stars and the rising moon so that Abel easily found his way back to where he had been riding the flank with Randy Clutter. Randy was there when Abel rode up, and the herd was moving along steadily, grazing just enough to keep the cows satisfied. As long as they had something to chew on, the cows seemed content.

  “What was that all about?” Randy asked when Abel rode up. “Torgerson wanted to see you, right. About what?”

  “Randy, you ask too damned many questions at once,” Abel said. “I can’t handle more’n one at a time.”

  “Well, what’s going on? What did Torgerson want with you?”

  The coyote chorus stopped abruptly, as if a door had been slammed shut on a room. None of the notes lingered. The night took on an eerie cast, as if something of its essence had been taken away, leaving only a shadow of what once was. Abel listened, not trusting his ears, but the silence was absolute beyond the sound of the cattle in the foreground. In the distance, there was only a deep silence, that subtraction of music that had floated on the night air.

  “My bud’s hooked up with Becker,” Abel said.

  “Huh?”

  “You heard me. Jock’s riding for the X8 brand.”

  “I thought your brother was still back in Del Rio.”

  “You ain’t the brightest lamp on the street, are you, Randy? I said Jock was hired on as trail boss for Becker. You got that?”

  “Yeah, but how come Torgerson sent for you? Did he fire you?”

  “Hell, no, he didn’t fire me. Shit, you ask a lot of questions, Randy. You ought to have been born a woman.”

  “That ain’t funny, Abel. I’m just curious is all.”

  “Well, be curious about something else. I don’t want to talk about what Torgerson said or did. Hear?”

  “Well, all right. I mean, if it’s a damned old secret.”

  Abel touched spurs to his horse’s flanks, dancing it a few feet ahead of Clutter.

  “It ain’t no secret. He just asked me if I knew that Jock had joined up with the X8 is all.”

  “How come? I mean why would Torgerson want to know that?”

  Abel slowed his horse. He snorted in disgust, and speared Randy with a look that he knew the other man could not see. He felt his anger burning in him, burning, just about to burst into a raging flame.

  “Do you know what the hell loyalty is, Randy?”

  Clutter hesitated. Swallowed. Even in the dim light, Abel could see his Adam’s apple bob in his throat.

  “I never thought about it much, I reckon,” Randy said.

  “Well, maybe you ought to. Didn’t you never feel you owed somebody something? Maybe someone did you a good turn and you felt obligated to that person?”

  “No, I reckon not. What’s that got to do with that other thing? That royalty.”

  “Not royalty, Randy. Loyalty. Do you know what being loyal is?”

  “Maybe.”

  “Maybe, my ass. You don’t have the least idea of what the word means.”

  “I got a pretty good idea. I just never used it much. Never heard it much, neither. Not until tonight, when you said it.”

  “Well, Randy, though I ain’t a teacher, and sure ain’t your teacher, I’m going to tell you what loyalty is, you dumbbell.”

  “You don’t need to be calling me no names, neither, Abel Kane.”

  “When you ride for the brand, that means you don’t never walk away from it while you’re drawing pay from the outfit. Loyalty means you stick with the brand no matter what.”

  “So, what’s that got to do with your brother and Mr. Torgerson?”

  Abel shook his head. “I swear, Randy, sometimes you’re like a burr under a blanket.”

  “There you go again. Calling me names, Abel.”

  “No, I ain’t calling you no names. Listen, Randy, Torgerson just wanted to know where I stood with my brother, that’s all. He wondered if I’d be loyal to him or to Jock.”

  “Well, you and Jock had a falling out, didn’t you? That was a dumb question.”

  “Not really. Torgerson doesn’t know about my fight with Jock. He just wanted to know, if push came to shove on this here drive, if I would side with Jock or with him.”

  “And what did you tell him?”

  “Shit, Randy. You just keep on, don’t you?”

  “Hell, I said I was curious.”

  “Well, what in hell do you think I said to Torgerson? Huh? Do you think I told him that if my brother rode
up here and told me to steal all the Cross J cattle and give them to him, I’d just do it?”

  “Naw, I didn’t think that, Abel. I just thought . . .”

  Randy didn’t complete the sentence and Abel thought he might have gotten off the hook with Randy’s questions. He wanted to let it drop right there, but he knew he had not made his point. With Randy, you always had to nail down what was left flapping in the breeze.

  “Randy, Torgerson just thought what everybody thinks. That blood is thicker than water. He might have wondered about me riding over to the X8 herd because my brother was ramrodding it. And, if I did, he wanted it to be sooner, rather than later.”

  “Well, golly, Abel, you might.”

  “Might what?”

  “Want to work with your brother, like you used to back in Del Rio. Before you and me and D.F. went into robbing folks. Before Jock almost caught us that one time.”

  Abel stiffened. “You shut up about that, Randy.”

  “Huh?”

  “What we did back in Del Rio ain’t nobody’s business and you, me and D.F. don’t talk about those things no more. Hear?”

  “Yeah. Well, nobody knows. I mean, your brother never found out. He almost did.”

  “Just shut the hell up.”

  “You don’t need to get on me like that, Abel. Hell, you don’t know the half of it, anyways.”

  “What do you mean?” Abel bristled. That was another thing he had tried to forget. And now Randy had brought it up again, out of nowhere. After Jock had lost his herd up in Kansas, Abel and he had fallen on hard times. No money. No fun. Jock took it a lot better, but Abel had fallen in with Randy and Dan Fogarty. They had taken to robbery to finance their nights at the saloon. One neighbor had asked Jock to help him track some stolen horses, not knowing that the three of them had stolen the animals and were going to sell them over in Mexico for some beer money. But Jock had tracked them and almost caught them. Abel had told D.F. and Randy that they had to let the horses go and light a shuck out of there, or else Jock would catch them. D.F. agreed, but Randy had gotten mad that they were going to lose out, after all that hard work.