the Strong Shall Live (Ss) (1980) (9 page)

"There's only one thing I can do, and that's what your father would do or any of the men with him. I am going to fight."

He waved a hand. "There's four years of blood, sweat, and busters in this. Days and nights when I was so bitterly lonely I thought I'd go insane. I built those dams with my own hands. I gathered the stones for this house, cut and shaped the planks for the floors. I made the chairs. These things are mine, and I'll fight to keep them.

"If a single cow crosses The Fence, that cow will cross over my dead body, but believe me, it won't be lying there alone. Candy, if you can talk to your father, tell him that. Blood won't save his cattle, but if it is blood he wants, that's what he will get."

"They'll kill you, Barry. There are too many of them."

"I won't be alone. This may sound silly, but my mother and father will be with me. This land was theirs before it was mine. The ghosts of a thousand other men who fought for their homes will be there, too!"

"Barry, I told Father that if he came I'd fight with you."

Surprised, he looked up at her. "You said that?"

"I did, and I meant it."

Speechless, he hesitated, then shook his head. "No, as much as I'd like it, I can't let you fight against your father. This is my fight. I am obliged for the warning, but you'd better ride on now. But no matter what happens, I'll not forget this."

"All right, I'll go, but Barry, be careful! Joe Stangle hates you! And that other man, Curt McKesson ... he frightens me!"

For a long time after she was gone, Barry sat staring down the valley, thinking. He would leave the cattle where they were.

Accustomed to working and planning alone he now turned all his thoughts to defense. It was a problem he had considered since his first day, and his position was excellent. Table Mountain and the Neck barred access to Mirror Valley, and only the tunnel and The Fence offered ingress. In the other direction lay the canyon that opened into Long Valley, and he had no worries about that direction. It was a seventy-mile ride, much of it through the reservation lands, to get to that approach, and the Indians would resent any armed band crossing their lands.

Despite the selfishness of those who would destroy all he had built to save their own cattle, he could feel sympathy for them. He understood what it meant to a cattleman to see his stock dying, yet the water he had would save them for a few days only.

They were clutching at straws, egged on by the hatred of Joe Stangle and by Dulin. Behind it was the leftover hatred for the young Mexican who hadmarried pretty Molly O'Brien, the girl they all wanted.

With cool calculation he began to study his problem.

By noon on Saturday he began work, using a double-jack and a drill. These holes he loaded with powder, determined to blast it shut if need be. It was late afternoon before he completed the work.

From the top of Table Mountain he studied the Mirror Valley country with a field glass his father had given him. He could see the dust clouds that told of moving cattle. No cattle had yet reached Willow Springs, which Candy had told him would be the rendezvous point. Yet by Sunday night he knew the cattle would be massed at the opening of the draw.

Returning to the house he lowered a heavy log gate across the tunnel mouth. Mounting his horse and leading a packhorse, he headed for The Fence.

Once there he studied the terrain with care. The Fence was strong, and his inner fence was stronger. Tearing it out would be no simple job. Climbing the mountain he dug two rifle pits, one forward, the other some distance further back, which he could reach by a hidden route. In each he left ammunition.

No weight of cattle could press down The Fence. It must be torn down or blasted out. Using a crowbar from the packhorse he pried loose a number of boulders and tumbled them down the steep sides of the draw to a place behind The Fence to widen and deepen the barrier.

Further back, where the draw opened into the basin he dug another rifle pit and tumbled down more stones, but there they were more widely spaced and less of an obstruction. Not until darkness had fallen and he could see the dark mass of advancing cattle did he cease work.

Despite the fact that he feared to leave the barricade, he went back to the house and prepareda meal. He was sitting down to eat when he heard a call from the tunnel.

"Merrano?" The shout reached him clearly. "This is Cab Casady! I want to talk!"

Picking up his rifle, his gun belts still hanging from his hips, he walked to the log gate. "What's the problem?" he asked.

The big man grasped the logs. "Merrano, damn it, I'm no talker! I do claim some sense of what's right, and I ain't havin' no part of what they're tryin' to do. I got a rifle here and plenty of shells. I came to lend you a hand!"

"You mean that?" He recalled what Candy had said of this man.

"I sure do, boy! You've got sand, and by the Lord Harry I want to show these bullheads that at least one of us won't be stampeded by no hate-filled coyote like Joe Stangle!"

Barry put down his rifle and unlatched the gate. "Come in, Cab! I won't tell you how good it is to see you I"

The two men walked up to the cabin. Over coffee and side meat Barry explained his defenses. Casady chuckled. "I'll like seein' the expression on Joe Stangle's face when he gets to The Fence I" he said.

They took turns guarding the draw but not until daylight did the cattlemen start to ride up. Barry was at the cabin and he had welcomed another visitor . .. two of them, in fact.

Clyde Mayer, driving his old buckboard, a rifle between his knees, drove up the hill when the gate was opened. Beside him on the seat was Candy Drake. She set her lips stubbornly when she saw Barry.

"If you won't let me shoot I can at least make coffee and get food for you. You'll have to eat."

"All right, I'm not sorry you came. Come on, Mayer, we'd better head back for the draw."

He turned to the girl. "Candy, watch the tunnel. If you hear anybody coming, and you can alwayshear them, tell them to go away. Fire a couple of warning shots and if they don't leave, light the fuses."

Her features were stiff and white, her eyes large. "I'll do it, Barry. They've no business coming here."

Day was breaking into that gray half-light that precedes the dawn. Cab Casady rose from behind a boulder and came to meet them. "Howdy, Mayer I You joined the army?"

"I have."

Casady was a large, broad-shouldered man with twinkling blue eyes. "They're comin' now," he said. "We better look to it."

"Let me do the talking," Barry suggested. "Maybe we can avoid shooting."

"I doubt it," Cab said. "Stangle wants blood."

When the little cavalcade of riders had approached as far as he thought wise he fired a shot that brought them up standing.

"You boys better ride home. Nobody is coming through the wire, today or ever. I don't want to kill anybody, but I'm protecting my property against armed men."

Casady stood up. "I'm here, too, boys. The first man to touch that wire dies!"

Clyde Mayer called out. "Hill? Is that you? I'm no fighting man, Hill, but by gravy there's going to be some justice in this country I You take my advice and ride home."

"Mayer?"Hill's tone was incredulous. "You turned traitor, too?"

"I'm upholding justice, and if you've half the sense I gave you credit for you'll turn around and ride home. I like you Hill, but you lay a hand on that wire and my bullet will take you right between the eyes!"

There was a hurried conference among the riders. "They can't stop us!" Stangle protested. "They're bluffin'!"

"Count me out," Price Taylor said.

"You yellow?" Dulin sneered.

"You know I'm not yellow," Price Taylor said calmly, "but I've been thinking all the way out here. Merrano whipped me fair and square, and when I was down he didn't put the boots to me but stepped back and let me get up. He made good when we all laughed at him, and he's standing his ground now. As for Mayer, there ain't a fairer, more decent man around than him, and I'll be damned if I'll shoot at him !"

"Then why don't you join him?" Dulin sneered.

Price turned on him. "You called it, Rock! That's just what I'll do! I've made some bad mistakes and I'm no sky pilot, but I never ganged up on a man with guts. I'll join him!"

He wheeled his horse and started for the barrier. He lifted a hand. "Don't shoot, Merrano! I'm joinin' you!"

Rock Dulin swore viciously and suddenly he whipped up his rifle and fired.

Price Taylor lurched in the saddle, then slipped over on the ground.

"Damn traitor!" Rock Dulin said. "That'll show 'em!"

Tom Drake stared down at the body of Price Taylor. He had reared the boy. He had helped him mount his first horse. He stared around him in shocked bewilderment. "What are we doing?" he said. "Men, what are we doing?"

Dropping from his horse he stumbled to the body of Price Taylor.

Jim Hill was white to the lips. Hardy Benson stared after Tom Drake, his face stupid with shock. He looked as if he had awakened from a nightmare. He turned his eyes to Rock Dulin. "That was murder!" he said. "Nothin' but murder!"

Dulin turned like an animal at bay. His eyes went from man to man. "What's the matter? Are you all turnin' yellow? You started out to do it, now you're quittin'!"

Hill sat his horse, his rifle in his hands. "PriceTaylor was a good man. He had a right to his feelin's as much as us. Dulin"--his eyes fastened on the other rancher--"you an' Stangle do what you want, but you lift a gun at me, my boys will string you to the nearest cottonwood, an' that's where you belong I We've been a pack of fools, the lot of us!" He turned in the saddle. "Come on, boys, start 'em for home!"

As the Jim Hill hands began gathering the herd, Tom Drake glanced once at the draw, then turned to his own boys. "A couple of you pick up Price," he said.

Lou Barrow looked over at Drake. "Boss, Price was a good man. Too good to get shot in the back."

"I know, but there's been trouble enough today." He walked his horse to where Jim Hill and Hardy Benson sat. "I seem to be gettin' old these days, Jim. I've been lettin' things get out of hand."

"Yeah. Well, this w it, Tom. We're broke."

Silently, the groups scattered, driving their cattle. Dulin spoke to this one or that one but, was ignored, cut off, left out of their thinking.

He turned in cold fury to Stangle. "I got a notion to cut the thing myself!"

"Don't try it," Stangle advised. "If he didn't get you, Cab would. We can get even later."

As the three men inside The Fence watched them go, one said, "It will be good to get some warm grub." They turned their horses and rode toward the house.

"Dulin has always been a killer. He shot a man in a gunfight over at Trinidad a few years back," Cab said. "Curt McKesson is another of the same stripe."

Mayer went to his buckboard. "I'll be leaving."

"Watch yourself," Casady advised.

"They daren't bother me," Mayer said. "Without me they can't eat."

Candy was last to go, and Barry rode along with her. At the gate she turned to say good-bye, andhe shook his head. "I must talk to your father," he said.

"Do you think that's wise?"

"Maybe not, but he's got a chance to save some of his cattle, if he will listen."

Drake did not look up when they entered. He was seated in his old hide-bound chair, head hanging.

"Father? Here's someone to see you."

He looked up, raising his head like a cornered bear. "Howdy, Merrano. You're lookin' at an old fool."

"Drake"--Barry squatted against the wall--"if you will work to save your herd you can still do it"

"It would have to be soon, boy. They're dyin' like flies."

"Have you been up in the White Hills lately?"

"The White Hills? Not in five or six years. Nothin' up there but pinon an' juniper."

"I think there's water up there," Barry said. "One time down in Texas I saw them bring in an artesian well in country just like that. If you drilled a well just below that old trapper's cabin I think you'd strike water."

"Never heard of any wells drilled in this country," he said doubtfully.

"I've drilled four," Merrano replied, "all with water."

Drake struck a match and held it to his pipe. "Well, it's high time I owned up to thinkin' I was too smart. We old dogs figured we knew all the tricks."

He puffed on his pipe. "Mind if I ride over and have a look at your place? Candy's told me about it."

"You come at any time. As for well-drilling, I've got an outfit I hauled hi two years ago from Aragon."

He rode warily on his homeward way. Despite the peaceful discussion with Drake he knew that Stangle and Dulin were still his enemies. The twohad ridden off together, and Curt McKesson had ridden with them.

When Tom Drake rode to the basin the next morning, Jim Hill, Vinnie Lake, and Hardy Benson rode with him. They greeted Barry with no more than a nod, and he mounted the steeldust and led them across the basin. Drake pulled in suddenly, pointing to a mound of earth running diagonally across a shallow place on the hill.