“We've some fat stock,” I told him, “but we can't make a drive. What I would like is to trade the grown cattle to you, even up, for some of your young stuff.”
I drank half the milk and put the glass down. It had been cold, fresh-taken from a cave, no doubt.
“You can make your drive,” I went on, “and you can sell, so you will lose nothing. It would be right neighborly.”
He looked sharp at me when I used the word, and I knew at once it had been the right one. This fierce old man, independent and proud, respected family and neighbors.
“We'll swap.” He knocked out his pipe. “My boys will help you round up and drive.”
“No needâno reason you should get involved in this fight.”
He turned those fierce blue eyes at me. “I'm buyin' cows,” he said grimly. “Anybody who wants trouble over that can have it!”
“Now, Pa!” Mother Benaras smiled at me. “Pa figures he's still a-feudin'.”
Benaras shook his head, buttering a slice of bread. “We're beholden to no man, nor will we backwater for any man. Nick, you roust out and get Zeb. Then saddle up and ride with this man. You ride to his orders. Start no trouble, but back up for nobody. Understand?”
Nick turned and left the room, and Benaras turned to his wife.
“Ma, set up the table. We've a guest in the house.” He looked at me, searchingly. “You had trouble with Pinder yet?”
So I told him how it began, of the talk in the stable, and of my meeting with Blackie later. I told that in few words, saying only, “Blackie braced meâ¦waited for me with a drawn gun.”
That was all I told them. The boys exchanged looks, and the old man began to tamp tobacco in his pipe.
“Had it comin,' that one. Jolly had trouble with him, figured to kill him soon or late.”
They needed no further explanation than that. A man waited for you with a gun in handâ¦it followed as the night the day that if you were alive the other man was not. It also followed that you must have got into action mighty fast.
It was a pleasant mealâgreat heaps of mashed potatoes, slabs of beef and venison, and several vegetables. All the boys were there, tall, lean, and alike except for years. And all were carbon copies or their hard-bitten old father.
Reluctantly, when the meal was over, I got up to leave. Old Bob Benaras walked with me to my horse. He put a hand on the animal and nodded.
“Know a man by his horse,” he said, “or his gun. Like to see 'em well chosen, well kept. You come over, son, you come over just any time. We don't neighbor much, ain't our sort of folks hereabouts. But you come along when you like.”
It was well after dark when we moved out, taking our time, and knowing each one of us, that we might run into trouble before we reached home. It was scarcely within the realm of possibility that my leave-taking had gone unobserved. Anxious as I was, I kept telling myself the old man had been on that ranch long before I appeared, that he could take care of himself.
Remembering the sign on the gate, I felt better. No man would willingly face that Spencer.
The moon came out, and the stars. The heat of the day vanished, as it always must in the desert where there is no growth to hold it, only the bare rocks and sand. The air was thin on the high mesa and we speeded up, anxious to be home.
Once, far off, we thought we heard a soundâ¦Listening, we heard nothing.
At the gate I swung to open it, ready for a challenge.
Suddenly, Nick Benaras whispered, “Hold it!”
We froze, listening. We heard the sound of moving horses, and on the rim of the Wash, not fifty yards off, two riders appeared. We waited, rifles in our hands, but after a brief pause, apparently to listen, the two rode off toward town.
We rode through the gate and closed it. There was no challenge.
Zeb drew up sharply. “Nick!”
We stopped, waiting, listening.
“What is it, Zeb?”
“Smokeâ¦I smell smoke.”
Chapter 5
F
EAR WENT THROUGH me like a hot blade. Slapping the spurs to my tired buckskin, I put the horse up the trail at a dead run, Nick and Zeb right behind me.
Then I saw the flicker of flames and, racing up, drew rein sharply.
The house was a charred ruin, with only a few flames still flickering. The barn was gone, the corrals had been pulled down.
“Ball!” I yelled it, panic rising in me. “Ball!”
And above the feeble sound of flames I heard a faint cry.
He was hidden in a niche of rock near the spring, and the miracle was that he had lived long enough to tell his story. Fairly riddled with bullets, his clothes were charred and his legs had been badly burned. It took only a glance to know the old man was dyingâ¦there was no chance, none at all.
Behind me I heard Nick's sharp-drawn breath, and Zeb swore with bitter feeling.
Ball's fierce old eyes pleaded with me. “Don'tâ¦don't let 'em git the place! Don'tâ¦never!”
His eyes went beyond me to Nick and Zeb. “You witness. His now. I leave all I have to Mattâ¦to Brennan. Never to sell! Never to give up!”
“Who was it?”
Down on my knees beside the old man, I came to realize the affection I'd had for him. Only a few days had we been together, but they had been good days, and there had been rare understanding between us. And he was going, shot down and left for dead in a burning house. For the first time I wanted to kill.
I wanted it so that my hands shook and my voice trembled. I wanted it so that the tears in my eyes were there as much from anger as from sorrow.
“Pinder!” His voice was only a hoarse whisper. “Rollie Pinder, heâ¦was dressed likeâ¦you. I let him in, thenâ¦Strange thingâ¦thought I saw Park.”
“Morgan Park?” I was incredulous.
His lips stirred, trying to shape words, but the words would not take form. He looked up at me, and he tried to smile.â¦He died that way, lying there on the ground with the fire-light flickering on his face, and a cold wind coming along from the hills.
“Did you hear him say that Park was among them?”
“Ain't reasonable. He's thick with the Maclarens.”
The light had been bad, Ball undoubtedly had been mistaken. Yet I made a mental reservation to check on Morgan Park's whereabouts.
The fire burned low and the night moved in with more clouds, shutting out the stars and gathering rich and black in the canyons. Occasional sparks flew up, and there was the smell of smoke and charred wood.
A ranch had been given me, but I had lost a friend. The road before me now stretched long and lonely, a road I must walk with my gun in my hand.
Standing there in the darkness, I made a vow that if there was no law here to punish the Pinders, and I knew no move would be made against them, I'd take the law in my own hand. Rollie would die and Jim would die, and every man who rode with them would live to rue that day.
And to the Benaras boys I said as much. They nodded, knowing how I felt. They were young men from a land of feud, men of strong friendship and bitter hatred, and of fights to the end.
“He was a good man,” Zeb said. “Pa liked him.”
F
OR TWO DAYS we combed the draws, gathering cattle. At the end of the second day we had only three hundred head. Rustling by the big brands had sadly depleted the herds of the Two-Bar.
We made our gather in the bottom of Cottonwood Wash, where there was water and grass. Once in that bottom, it was easy to hold the cows.
“Come morning, we'll start our drive.”
Nick looked around at me. “Figure to leave the ranch unguarded?”
“If they move in,” I told him, “they can move out again or be buried there.”
The canyon channeled the drive and the cattle were in good shape and easy to handle. It took us all day to make the drive, skirting the mesa I had crossed in my first ride to Organ Rock. My side pained me very little although it was still stiff. There was only that gnawing, deep-burning anger at the killers of old man Ball to worry me.
They had left a wounded man to burn. They had killed a man who wanted only peace, the right to enjoy the ranch he had built from nothing. He had been an old man, strong for his years, but with a weariness on him and the need for quiet evenings and brisk, cool mornings, and a chair on a porch. And that old man had died in the falling timbers of his burning home, his body twisted with the pain of bullet wounds.
At the ranch we told our story to Benaras, and as he listened his hard old face stiffened with anger.
We ate there, sitting again at that table that seemed always heavy with food, and we talked long, saying nothing of what was to come, for we were men without threats. We were men who talked little of the deeds to be done.
Looking back over the few days since I had first come to Hattan's Point, I knew I had changed.
It is the right of youth to be gay and proud, to ride with a challenge. The young bull must always try his strength. It was always so, the test of strength and the test of youth. Yet when the male met his woman it was different. I had met mine thus, and I had seen an old man dieâ¦these are things to bring years to a man.
When day came again to Organ Rock, Jolly and Jonathan Benaras helped me start the herd of young stuff back up the trail. Benaras had given me two dozen head more than I'd asked in trade, but the stock I'd given him were heavy and ready for market as they stood.
Jolly had been at Hattan's when the news of the raid reached the town. The Apache trailer, Bunt Wilson, and Corby Kitchen had been on the raid, and three others unnamed.
“Hear anything said about Morgan Park?”
“Not him. Lyell, who rides for Park, he was along.”
Ball might have meant to say it was a rider of Park's rather than Park himself. That was more likely.
Jonathan rode back from the point. He had gone on ahead, scouting the way.
“Folks at your placeâ¦two, maybe three.”
Something in me turned cold and ugly. “Bring the herd. I'll ride on ahead.”
Jonathan's big Adam's apple bobbed. “Jolly an' me, we ain't had much fun lately. Can't we come along?”
“Foot of the hill. Right below where the house was.
An idea hit me. “Where's their camp?”
They got them a tent.”
“We'll take the herdâ¦drive it right over the tent.”
Jonathan looked at Jolly. “Boys'll be sore. Missin' all the fun.”
We started the herd. They were young stuff and full of ginger, ready to run. They came out of the canyon some two hundred yards from the camp, and then we really lit into them.
With a wild yell, I banged a couple of quick shots from my gun and the herd lit out as if they were making a break for water after a long dry drive. They hit that stretch with their bellies to the grass and ran like deer.
Up ahead we saw men jumping up. Somebody yelled, somebody else grabbed for a rifle, and then that herd hit them, running full tilt.
One man dove for his horse, missed his grab, and fell sprawling. He came up running and just barely made it to the top of a rock as the herd broke around it.
The tent was smashed down, the food trampled into the dust. The fire scattered, utensils smashed and banged around. The herd went on through, some of them going up the hill, some breaking around it. The camp was a shambles, the gear the men had packed up there was ruined.
One man who had scrambled into a saddle in time swung his horse and came back. He was a big redhead and he looked tough. He was fighting mad.
“What goes on here? What the hell's this?”
He rode a Boxed M horse. Rud Maclaren's men had beaten the CP to the ranch.
Kneeing my horse alongside his, I told him. “I'm Matt Brennan, owner of the Two-Bar, with witnesses to prove it. You're trespassing. Now light a shuck!”
“I will like hell!” His face flushed with anger. “I got my orders, an' Iâ”
My fist backhanded into his teeth, smashing his lips to pulp. He went back out of the saddle and I swung my horse around and jumped to the ground as he started to get up. I hit him getting off the ground and he went down hard. He started up again, Then dove at my feet. I jumped back and as he sprawled out I grabbed his hair and jerked him up. I smashed a fist into his wind, and then shoved him off and hit him in the face with both hands. He went down, and he didn't make any move to get up.
Jonathan and Jolly had rounded up two more men and herded them to me.
One was a slim, hard-faced youngster who looked as if the devil was riding him. His kind I had seen before. The other was a stocky redhead with a scar on his jaw.
“You ruined my outfit,” he said. “What kind of a deal is this?”
“When you ride for a fighting brand you can expect trouble. What did you expect when you came up here? A pink tea party? You go back and tell Maclaren not to send boys to do a man's job. I'll shoot the next trespasser on sight.”
The younger one was sneering. “What if he sends me?” He put his hands on his hips. “If I hadn't lost my gun in the scramble you'd eat that!”
“Jolly! Lend me your gun!”
Without a word, Benaras passed his six shooter to me.
The youngster's eyes were suddenly calculating and wary. He suspected a trick, but could not guess what it would be.
Taking the gun by the barrel, I walked toward him. “You get your chance,” I said. Flipping it in my hand so the butt was up, I held it out. “Anyway you like. Try a border roll or shoot from where it is. Anyway you try it, I'm going to kill you.”
He didn't like it. He stared at me and then at the gun. His tongue touched his lips. He wanted that gun so bad he could taste it, and my gun was in my holster.
He had that streak of viciousness it takes to make a killer, but suddenly he was face to face with killing and right now he wanted no part of it. The thing that bothered him was the fact that I'd gamble. No man would make such a gamble unless he knewâ¦or unless he was crazy.