At daybreak, with three unbranded mules to carry the supplies, I started for Hattan's, circling wide around so that I could come into the trail to town from the side opposite the Two-Bar.
It was in my mind that the Two-Bar might be watched, but after scouting the edges of the Wash I decided that they must believe they had Ball safely bottled up and no chance of his getting help. Probably they would be only too glad for him to start to townâ¦for when he returned they could be in possession and waiting for him.
Going down the Wash for several miles, I came out by a narrow, unused trail and cut across country, keeping to low country to escape observation.
The desert greasewood gave way to mesquite and to bunch grass. The morning was bright, and the sun would be warm again. Twice, nearing the skyline, I saw riders in the distance, but none of them could have seen me.
The town was quiet when I rode in, and I came up through the shacks back of the livery stable and left my mules tied to the corral near the back door of the store.
Walking out on the street, I smoked a cigarette and kept my eyes open. Nobody seemed to notice me, nobody seemed to know I was in town. There was no sign of Maclaren or Canaval, or of Moira.
Loading the supplies, I broke into a sweat. The day was warm and still, and my side still pained me. My face was puffed, although both my eyes were now open and the blackness had changed to mottled blue and yellow. When I was through I led the mules into the cottonwoods on the edge of town and picketed them there, ready for a quick move. Then I returned to Mother O'Hara's. My purpose was double. I wanted a good meal, and I wanted news.
Key Chapin and Canaval were there and they looked up as I entered. Chapin's eyes took in my face with a quick glance, and there was in his eyes something that might have been sympathy.
Canaval noticed, but it did not show. “That job is still open,” he suggested. “We could use you.”
“Thanks.” There was a bit of recklessness in me. My supplies were packed and ready to go, and there was enough on those mules to last us three months, with a little game shooting on the side and a slaughtered beef or two. “I'm going to run my own outfit.”
Maybe I was a fool to say it. Maybe I should have kept it a secret as long as I could. But just as I started to speak I heard a door open behind me and that light step and the perfume I knew. Maybe that was why I was here, to see Moira, and not for a meal or news.
From the day I first saw her she was never to be near without my knowledge. There was something within me that told me, some feeling in my blood, some perception beyond the usual. This was my woman, and I knew it.
She had come into the restaurant behind me and it may have been that that made me say it, to let her know that I had not cut and run, that I intended to stay, that I had begun to build for the future I had promised her.
“Your own outfit?” Chapin was surprised. “You're turning nester?”
Canaval said nothing at all, but he looked at me, and I think he knew then. I saw dawning comprehension in his eyes, and perhaps something of respect.
“I'll be ranching.”
Rising, I faced around. Moira was looking at me, her eyes level and steady.
“Miss Maclaren?” I indicated the seat beside me. “May I have the pleasure?”
She hesitated, then shook her head slightly and went around the table to sit down beside Canaval, her father's foreman and strong right hand.
“You're
ranching?
” Canaval was puzzled. “If there's any open range around here I haven't heard of it.”
“It's a place east of hereâ¦the Two-Bar.”
“What about the Two-Bar?” Rud Maclaren had followed his daughter into the restaurant. He rounded the table beside her and looked down at me, a cold, solid man.
Taking a cup from a tray, I filled it with coffee.
“Mr. Brennan was telling us, Father, that he's ranching on the Two-Bar.”
“What?”
Maclaren looked as if he'd been slapped.
“Ball needed help, and I wanted a ranch. I've a working partnership.” Then looking up at Moira, I added, “And a man doesn't want to go too far from the girl he is to marry.”
“What's that?” Maclaren was confused.
“Why, Father!” Moira's eyes widened, and a flicker of deviltry danced in them. “Haven't you heard? Mr. Brennan has been saying that he is going to marry me!”
“I'll see him in hell first!” He stared down at me. “Young man, you stop using my daughter's name or you'll face me.”
“I'd rather not face you. I want to keep peace in the family.” I lifted my cup and took a swallow of coffee. “Nobody has a greater respect for your daughter's name than I. After allâ¦she is to be my wife.”
Maclaren's face flushed angrily, but Canaval chuckled and even Moira seemed amused.
Key Chapin put in a quieting word before Maclaren could say what might have precipitated trouble.
“There's an aspect of this situation, Rud, that may have escaped you. If Brennan is now Ball's partner, it might be better to let him stay on, then buy him out.”
Maclaren absorbed the idea and was pleased. It was there in his eyes, plain to be seen. He looked down at me with new interest.”
“Yes, yes, of course. We might do business, young man.”
“We mightâ¦and we want peace, not trouble. But I did not become a partner to sell out. Also, in all honesty, I took on the partnership only by promising never to sell. Tomorrow I shall choose a building site.
“Which brings up another point. There are Boxed M cattle on Two-Bar range. It should take you no longer than a week to remove them. I shall inform the CP of the same time limit.”
Maclaren's face was a study. He started to speak, then hesitated. Finishing my coffee, I got to my feet, I put down a coin and went out the door, closing it softly just as Maclaren started to speak.
There was a time for all things, and this was the time to leaveâ¦while I was ahead.
Rounding the building, I brought up short. Pinder's black-haired rider was standing beside my horse. There was a gun in his hand and an ugly look in his eyes.
“You talk too much. I heard that you'd moved in with Ball.”
“So you heard.”
“Sure, and Jim will pay a bonus for your hide.”
His finger tightened and I threw myself aside and palmed my gun. It was fastâ¦the instinctive reaction of a man trained to use a gun. The gun sprang to my hand, it bucked in my palm. I heard the short, heavy bark of it, and between my first and second shots, his gun slammed a bullet that drew blood from my neck.
Blackie turned as if to walk away, then fell flat, his fingers clawing hard at the dirt.
Men came rushing among them those from Mother O'Hara's. “Seen it!” The speaker was a short, leather-faced man who had been harnessing a horse in the alley near by. “Blackie laid for him with a drawn gun.”
Canaval's gaze was cool, attentive. “A drawn gun? That was fast, man.”
Maclaren looked at me more carefully. Probably he had believed I was some fresh youngster, but now he knew that I'd used a gun. This was going to change things. Instead of one lonely old man on the Two-Bar there was now another man, a young man, one who could shoot fast and straight.
When I could, I backed from the crowd and went to my horse, leading him around the corner into the street. Stepping into the leather, I looked around and saw Moira on the steps, watching me. I lifted my hat, then cantered away to the cottonwoods and my mules.
Ball was at the gate when I arrived, and I could see the relief in his eyes.
“Trouble?”
My account was brief, and to the point. There was nothing about killing that I liked.
“One more,” Ball said grimly, “and one less.”
But I was remembering the face of the girl on the steps. Moira knew now that I'd killed a man. How would she feel about that? How would she look upon me now?
Chapter 4
D
URING THE NEXT two days I spent hours in the saddle going over the lands that lay under the Two-Bar brand. It was even better than I had expected, and it was easy to see why the CP and the Boxed M were envious.
Aside from the rich grass of Cottonwood Wash, and the plentiful water supply, there were miles of bunch grass country before the desert was reached, and even the desert was rich in a growth of antelope bush and wool fat.
It was a good ranch, with several waterholes other than the stream along the Wash, and with subirrigation over against the mountains. Only to the west were there ranches, and only from the west could other cattle get into the area to mingle with the Two-Bar herd.
Ball's calves had largely been rustled by the large outfits, and if we expected to prosper we must rid ourselves of the stock we had and get some young stuff. The cattle we had would never be in any better shape, but from now on would grow older and tougher. Now was the time to sell yet a drive was impossible.
Ball was frankly discouraged. “I'm afraid they've got us bottled up, Matt,” he told me. “When you came along I was about ready to cash in my chips.”
“Outfit down in the hills past Organ Rock.”
Ball's head lifted sharply. “Forgot to tell you. Stay clear of that bunch. That's the Benaras place, the B Bar B. Six in the family. They have no truck with anybodyâan' all of them are dead shots.”
He smoked in silence for a while, and I considered the situation on the ranch. There was no time to be lost, and no sense in being buffaloed. The thing to do was to start building the outfit now.
An idea had come to my mind, and when I saddled up the next morning I drifted south.
It was a wild and lonely country, toward Organ Rock. Furrowed and eroded by thousands of years of sun, wind, and rain, a country tumbled and broken as if by some insane giant. Miles of raw land with only occasional spots of green to break the everlasting reds, pinks, and whites.
Occasionally, in the midst of a barren and lonely stretch, there would be an oasis of green, with trees, water, and grass. At each of these would be a few cattle, fat and lazy under the trees.
A narrow trail led up to the mesa, and I took it, letting the buckskin find his own way. There were few horse tracks, which told me that even the boys from the B Bar B rarely came this far.
Wind moved across the lonely mesa, the junipers stirred. I drew up, standing in the half shade of the tree and looking ahead. The mesa seemed empty, yet I had a sudden feeling of being observed. For a long time I listened, but no sound came across the silences.
The buckskin walked on, almost of his own volition. Another trail intersected, a more traveled trail. Both led in the direction I was now taking.
There was no sound but the footfalls of my horse, the lonely creak of the saddle, and once, far off, the cry of an eagle. A rabbit bounded up and away bouncing like a tufted rubber ball.
The mesa broke off sharply and before me lay a green valley not unlike Cottonwood Wash, but far wilder and more remote. Towering rock walls skirted it, and a dark-mouthed canyon opened wide into the valley. The trail down from the mesa led from bench to bench with easy swings and switchbacks, and I descended, riding more warily.
Twice antelope appeared in the distance and once a deer. There were tracks of cattle, but few were in evidence.
The wild country to the east, on my left, was exciting to see. A vast maze of winding canyons and broken ledges, of towering spires and massive battlements. It was a land unexplored and unknown, and greatly tempting to an itching foot.
A click of a drawn-back hammer stopped me in my tracks. Buck stood perfectly still, his ears up, and I kept both hands on the pommel.
“Goin' somewhar, stranger?”
The voice seemed to come from a clump of boulders at the edge of a hay meadow, but there was nobody in sight.
“I'm looking for the boss of the B Bar B.”
“What might you want with him?”
“Business talk. I'm friendly.”
The chuckle was dry. “Ever see a man covered by two Spencers who wasn't friendly?”
The next was a girl's voice. “Who you ridin' fo'?”
“I'm Matt Brennan, half-owner of the Two-Bar.”
“You could be lyin'.”
“Do I see the boss?”
“I reckon.”
A tall boy of eighteen stepped from the rocks. Lean and loose-limbed, he looked tough and wise beyond his years. He carried his Spencer as if it was part of him. He motioned with his head to indicate a trail into the wide canyon.
Light steps came from somewhere behind him as he walked the buckskin forward. He did not turn in the saddle and kept his hands in sight.
The old man of the tribe was standing in front of a stone house built like a fort. Tall as his sons who stood beside him, he was straight as a lodge-pole pine.
To right and left, built back near the rock walls, were stables and other buildings. The hard-packed earth was swept clean, the horses were curried, and all the buildings were in good shape. Whatever else the Benaras family might be, they were workers.
The old man looked me over without expression. Then he took the pipe from his lean jaws.
“Get down an' set.”
Inside, the house was as neat as on the outside. The floors were freshly scrubbed, as was the table. Nor was there anything makeshift about it. The house and furniture had been put together by skillful hands, each article shaped with care and affection.
A stout, motherly-looking woman put out cups and poured coffee. A girl in a neat cotton dress brought home-baked bread and home-made butter to the table. Then she put out a pot of honey.
“Our own bees.” Old Bob Benaras stared from under shaggy brows. He looked like a patriarch right out of the Bible.
He watched me as I talked, smoking quietly. I ate a slice of bread, and did not spare the butter and honey. He watched with approval, and the girl brought a tall glass filled with creamy milk.