B
YRN SONNTAG WAS pleased beyond measure when he encountered Mexie Roberts in the Longhorn. He passed him the word, then went on and sat in on a poker game. When the game broke up several hours later he was a winner by some two hundred dollars.
Mexie Roberts joined him on the trail. He was a slight, brown man with a sly face. “You know Texas Dowd?” Sonntag demanded.
“Si.”
Roberts studied Sonntag.
“Kill him.”
“How much?”
Sonntag hesitated. Then he drew out his winnings. “Two hundred,” he said, “for a clean jobâ¦one hundred now.”
CHAPTER 2
T
HE RIMROCK THAT divided the open range of Laird Valley from Mahone's holdings was almost as steep and difficult to scale from the inside. Finn Mahone had often studied the mountains, and knew there was an old, long-unused path that seemed to lead toward the crest. His black stallion was a mountain-bred horse, and he took the trail without hesitation.
The steep mountainside was heavily timbered with pine, mingled with cedar and manzanita. The earth under the trees was buried deep under years and years of pine needles, except where here and there rock cropped out of the earth: the rough granite fingers of the mountain.
Several times he reined in to let the stallion breathe easier, and while resting the horse, he turned in the saddle to study the land around him. Below him, stretched out like something seen in a dream, were the three links in the Crystal Valley chain, and along the bottom the tumbling silver of Crystal Creek.
His stone cabin, built in a cleft of the mountain, was invisible from here, but he could just see the top of the dead pine that towered above the forest to mark the opening into the trail to Rico. It was a trail rarely used except when he drove his cattle to the railroad siding in the desert town.
Rico was as turbulent as Laird was peaceful, and it was a meeting ground of the cattlemen from Laird, the sheep men from the distant Ruby Hills, and the miners who worked a few claims in the Furbelows. Rico had no charms for Finn Mahone, and he avoided the town and the consequences of trouble there.
His occasional visits to Laird had built friendships. He had come to enjoy his contacts with Judge Collins, Doc Finerty, Dean Armstrong, and Otis.
Big, quiet, and slow to make friends, he had bought drinks for and accepted drinks from these men, and had, at the insistence of Otis, gone around to see Lettie Mason. Her house of entertainment was frowned upon by the respectable, but offered all Laird possessed in the way of theater and gambling. Lettie had heard Mahone was in town and sent Otis to bring him to call.
She was a woman of thirty-four who looked several years younger. She had lived in Richmond, New York, San Francisco, and New Orleans, and had for eight years of her life been married to a man of old but impoverished family who had turned to gambling as a business.
Lettie Mason had met three of the men in Laird before she came west. Two of these were Finn Mahone and Texas Dowd, and the third was Pierce Logan.
Since her arrival she had been in the company of Logan many times, and he had never acknowledged their previous meeting. After some time Lettie became convinced that he had forgotten the one night they met. It was not surprising, since he had been focused on the cards that her husband had been holding and she was introduced by her married name. Dowd was a frequent visitor at the rambling frame house across from the combination city hall and jail, but Mahone had been there only twice.
One other man in Laird knew a little about Lettie Mason. That man was Garfield Otis, who probably knew her better than all the rest. Otis, lonely, usually broke, and always restless, found in her the understanding and warmth he needed. She fed him at times, gave him drinks more rarely, and confided in him upon all subjects. She was an intelligent, astute woman who knew a good deal about men and even more about business.
Finn Mahone, riding the mountainside above Crystal Valley, could look upon Laird with detachment. Consequently, his perspective was better. In a town where he had no allegiances and few friendships, he could see with clarity the shaping and aligning of forces. He was a man whom life had left keenly sensitive to impending trouble, and as he had seen it develop before, he knew the indications.
Until the fight with Leibman, he had believed he was merely a not-too-innocent bystander. Now he knew he was, whether he liked it or not, a participant. Behind the rising tide of trouble in the Laird basin there appeared to be a shrewd intelligence, the brain of a man or woman who knew what he or she wanted and how to get it.
Understanding nothing of that plan, Mahone could still detect the tightening of strings. Some purpose of the mind behind the trouble demanded that he, Finn Mahone, be marked as a rustler and eliminated.
He was nearing the crest and the trail had leveled off and emerged from the pine forest.
He must have another talk with Lettie. He knew her of old, and knew she was aware of all that happened around her, that men talked in her presence and she listened well. They had met in New Orleans in one of those sudden contacts deriving from the war. He had found her taking shelter in a doorway during a riot, and escorted her home. She was, he learned, making a success of gambling where her husband had failed. He had died, leaving her with little, but that little was a small amount of cash and a knowledge of gambling houses.
Her husband, who had drawn too slow in an altercation with another gambler, had tried to beat the game on his own. Lettie won a little, and then bought into a gambling house, preferring the house percentage to the risk of a single game. Kindhearted, yet capable and shrewd, she made money swiftly.
Finn reined in suddenly and spoke softly to the stallion. Before him was a little glade among the trees, a hollow where the water from a small stream gathered before trickling off into a rippling brook that eventually reached Crystal Creek. A man was coming out of the trees and walking down to the stream. The man lay down beside the stream and drank. Dismounting, Finn held the big horse motionless and stood behind a tree, watching.
When the man arose, Finn saw that he was an Indian, no longer young. Two braids fell over his shoulders from under the battered felt hat, and there was a knife and a pistol on his belt.
The Indian looked around slowly, then turned and started back toward the woods. Yet some sense must have warned him he was being watched, for he stopped suddenly and turned to stare back in Finn's direction.
Moving carefully, Finn stepped from behind the tree and mounted his horse. Then he walked the horse down into the glade and toward the Indian.
The fellow stood there quietly, his black eyes steady, watching Finn approach.
“How Kola?”
Finn gave the Sioux greeting because he knew no other. He reined in. “Is your camp close by?”
The Indian gestured toward the trees, then turned and led the way. Sticks had been gathered for a fire, and some blankets were dropped on the ground. Obviously, the Indian had just arrived. Two paint ponies stood under the trees, and the Indian's new rifle, a Winchester, leaned against a tree.
Finn took out his tobacco and tossed it to the Indian. “Traveling far?”
“Much far.” The Indian dug an old pipe from his pocket and stoked it with tobacco, then he gestured toward the valley. “Your house?”
“Yes, my house, my cows.”
The Indian lit his pipe and smoked without speaking for several minutes. Finn rolled a cigarette and lighted it, waiting. The Indian nodded toward the valley. “My homeâ¦once. Long time no home.”
“You've come back, huh?” Finn took his cigarette from his lips and looked at the glowing end. “Plenty of beaver here. Why not stay?”
The Indian turned his head to look at him. “Your home now,” he suggested.
“Sure,” Mahone said. “But there's room enough for both of us. You don't run cattle, I don't trap beaver. You and me, friends, huh?”
The Indian studied the proposition. “Sure,” he said, after a while. “Friends.” Then he added, “Me Shoshone Charlie.”
“My name's Finn Mahone.” He grinned at the Indian. “You been to Rawhideâ¦the little town?”
“Rawhide no good. Rico no good. Plenty bad white man. Too much shootin'.” Charlie nodded. “Already see two white man, ride much along big river. One white man tall, not much meat, bad cut like so,” he indicated a point over the eye. “Other white man short, plenty thick. Bay pony.”
Frank Salter and Banty Hull. They had been scouting the upper Laird River Canyon. That was on this side of Rico, and beyond the Rimrock from the Laird Valley. It was far off their own range. If they were scouting along there, the chances were they were looking for the route he took to Rico on his cattle drives. He forded the river in the bottom of that canyon.
“Thanks. Those men are plenty bad.” Mahone watched the light changing on the mountainside across the Crystal Valley. The Indian knew plenty, and given time, might talk. He had a feeling he had won a friend in the old man.
“I'm headin' back,” he said, “after a bit. Suppose you need sugar, tobacco? You come to see me. Plenty of coffee, too. I always have some in the pot, and if I'm not home, you get a cup and have some. Better not go into Rawhide, unless you have to.” The Indian watched him as he rode away.
He was restless, knowing things were coming to a head. It disturbed him that Remy thought of him as a rustler. The girl had stirred him more deeply than he liked to admit. Yet, even as he thought of that, he knew it went further. She was so much the sort of person he had always wanted.
If he had read the bullet-marked playing card right, Texas Dowd finally knew he was on the range. The fact that he was riding for her would account for the excellent cattle she had, and the condition of her grass. In his months of riding the Highbinders, he had watched with interest the shifting of the Lazy K cattle. The ground was never grazed too long, and the cattle were moved from place to place with skill instead of allowing them to range freely. They had been shifted to the lowlands during the spring months and then, as hotter weather drew near, moved back where there was shade and greener grass from subirrigated land near the hills.
Dowd would know that Finn Mahone was no rustler, whatever else he might think of him.
Once home, he stabled his horse, gave it a brisk rub-down, and went into the house. After a leisurely supper he brewed an extra pot of coffee, hot and black, and sat down by the lamp. He picked up a book, but found himself thinking instead of the girl with golden hair who had watched his fight from the boardwalk. He recalled the flash of her eyes as he had told her he refused to sell the stallion. He sighed, and settled in to a few hours of reading.
I
N THE RAMBLING adobe house on the Lazy K, Remy walked into the spacious, high-ceilinged living room, and sat down. “Dad,” she asked suddenly, “have you ever heard of a man named Mahone?”
Frenchy Kastelle sat up in his chair and put his book down. He was a lean, aristocratic man with white hair at his temples and dark, intelligent eyes. He was French mixed with California Spanish, and he had lived on the San Francisco waterfront in exciting and dangerous times. Finally, he had gone into the cattle business in Texas.
His knowledge of cattle was sketchy, but he got into a country where there was free range, and made the most of it. Yet he was just puttering along and breaking even when Texas Dowd rode over the border on a spent horse. The two became friends, and he hired the taciturn Texan as foreman. Few better cattlemen lived, and the ranch prospered, but newcomers began crowding in, and at Dowd's suggestion, they abandoned the ranch and moved westward to the distant Laird River Valley.
The route had been rough, and not unmarked with incident. Texas Dowd had proved himself a fighting man as well as a cattleman.
Frenchy knew how to appreciate a fighting man. Casual and easygoing in bearing, he was a wizard with cards and deadly with a gun. He was, he confessed, a man who loved his leisure. He was willing enough to leave his ranch management to the superior abilities and energies of Remy and Dowd.
He looked at his daughter with interest. For the past two years he had been aware that she was no longer a child, that she was a young lady with a mind of her own. He had looked at first with some disquiet, being entirely foreign to the problem of what to do about a young lady who was blossoming into such extravagant womanhood.
This was the first time she had ever manifested anything more than casual interest in any man, although Frenchy was well aware that Pierce Logan had been taking her to dances in Laird.
“Mahone?” He closed his book and placed it on the table. “Isn't he that chap who lives back in the mountains? Buys a lot of books, I hear.”
He studied his daughter shrewdly. “Why this sudden interest?”
“Oh, nothing. Only there was a fight today, and this Mahone fellow whipped that brute Leibman from over at Rawhide. Gave him an awful beating.”
“Whipped Leibman?” Kastelle was incredulous. “I'd like to have seen that. Leibman used to fight on the coast, rough-and-tumble fights for a prize. He was a bruiser.”
“Dowd won money on Mahone, and from the way he acts I think he knows something about him. He seemed so sure that he would beat Leibman.”
“Then why not ask him?” Kastelle suggested.
“I know, Dad,” she protested, “but he won't tell me anything. As far as that goes, I don't even know anything about Dowd!”
“Well, it is sometimes best not to ask too much about a man; judge him by his actionsâ¦that's a courtesy that I have taken advantage of as much as anyone. Texas Dowd is the best damned cattleman that ever came west of the Mississippi, and that includes Jesse Chisholm, Shanghai Pierce, or any of them! What more do you want?”
“What do you know about him?” Remy demanded. “What did he do before he came to us? He had been shot, but who had done it? Who, in all this world, could make Texas Dowd run?”
Kastelle shrugged and lifted his eyebrows. “A man may run from many things, Remy. He may run from fear of killing as much as fear of death. Fewer run for that reason, but a good man might.
“I've never asked him any questions and he hasn't volunteered anything. However, there are a few things one may deduce. He's been in the army at some time, as one can see by the way he sits a horse and carries his shoulders. He's been in more than one fight, as he is too cool in the face of trouble not to have had experience.