Ernest Haycox - The Greatest Westerns of Ernest Haycox

"You save your sorrow for the fellow that did the rustling," Charterhouse advised him and turned after the roustabout. Five minutes later he was out again, riding the substitute.

Studd broke off a low-pitched conversation with Shander. "Remember, I'll stand good for the difference. And if there's any favor I can do you, let me know. Sometimes I can be right useful to folks. Bear that in mind."

Charterhouse nodded and trotted northward in the path of the Box M outfit. It was useless to seek a trail among so many scuffed prints. But up yonder in the distance was the promise of wooded country which he meant to gain. From there he might sweep the land for stray riders; and timber was itself a possible hiding place. Not daring to press his mount too hard, he settled into a steady pace. "Favors from Studd, I bet, bear a return date with compound interest. That horse of mine might be right inside Angels this minute. If so, what could I do about it? I've got to play innocent and bold my cards high."

His last guess was dead center. No sooner had he cleared the town when Studd beckoned Corbin from the stable. "Who got the gent's outfit?"

"Pawl and Stuke Rennert. Horse is in the vacant lodge hall."

Studd nodded, at which Shander asked a question. "What did you do that for?"

"Good horse," opined Studd. "And I figured it might keep this Charterhouse around Cassabella for a while. We might need him."

"I don't intend to trust anything to a stranger," countered Shander.

"No-o, but he might be a good peg to hang some blame on. Ever think of that?"

"I doubt it," said Shander. "The lines are drawn too tight. What happens from now in is going to be pretty much in the open. No use trying to fool Nickum. He knows it's a case of simple and pure war. The bucket's tipped over. What he don't know is the amount of help we've got. Curly is coming to see me tonight. Curly's got thirty first-rate hands. Nickum don't savvy that."

"What you going to do with 'em?"

"Remains to be seen," rasped Shander. "Mebbe we'll nibble off a little chunk of Box M's stuff, mebbe we'll arrange to get some of his outfit out of call and tend to them. Mebbe a straight fight, no favors asked. But the other thing is already settled for tomorrow morning."

"Where?" asked Studd.

"Red Draw, same spot his lad was killed."

"Why pick on the same location? That ain't bright. How you going to get him there?"

"That's fixed. We got a simple, easy way of bringing him thataway. Just him and Haggerty." For some reason the two men grinned maliciously.

Studd poked a black thumb under the brim of his hat. "Didn't I say the stranger would come in handy? Nickum burnt his nose. Everybody heard it. What's hard about laying the blame on Mister Charterhouse?"

"What's the use of beating about the bush?" queried Shander. "We don't need any excuse. Once Nickum's gone, who is going to be interested in tracing down the reason for his killing? You run too much to this secret hocus-pocus."

"Stood me well in my affairs, Shander. May again. I never leave any loose strings if I can help it. What's orders from headquarters?"

"I'll know tonight," said Shander and swung away. "I'm riding home."

As Charterhouse rode, the land gradually lifted him and he began to command a more sweeping view of Casabella's vastness. The trees advanced slowly, the burning sun packed the heat layers more thickly against the ground, and the afternoon began to shimmer and drone. To his left a trail split away from the main stem and shot into the narrow mouth of a canyon that burrowed directly into the increasing elevation. For a considerable time he paralleled this, then lost it. But as he approached the summit of the ridge and the trees stood thinly around him, he found himself halted in a beaten area and looking down two hundred feet into sunless bottom.

Clint had often heard of Red Draw in his travels, for it was one of those natural freaks of nature worthy of more than a passing glance. Today he gave it only that and pressed on to thicker timber, finding the heat more oppressive in the shade than elsewhere. Eventually he came to a sort of knob that allowed him a full vista eastward.

Mile after mile the land stretched away, dimming with haze, empty of life, infinitely barren. Just visible was the low, bluish outline of a sprawling set of hills which, much riding experience told him, would be also barren and shelterless. Yet it was the kind of country Clint Charterhouse loved; here was room for a man to turn around, here was solitude; in short, this was cattle land, sweeping free and trackless. On impulse he left the trail that beckoned him deeper into timber and cut down into the open. To his left about a half mile, the piece of a house was visible, but he gave it no attention.

The suppressed, burning anger that had carried him out of town was now subsiding. Always the open trail had the power to soothe him like this, to whisper that another day would come and another chance present itself. The immense freedom of the prairie by day, the vaulted mystery by night—the appeal of it was in his blood and would be forever.

Three months ago he had been a responsible ranch foreman in the still farther west. Seasons of hard work behind, more seasons of hard work ahead. Sitting in the shade of a corral, he had thought about the back trail and in that instant the discovery every man makes sooner or later flashed devastatingly before him. He was twenty-six and the fine, fresh years of youth were going swiftly by. At the thought of it the savor of his cigarette went flat and all the old familiar objects about him became unsatisfactory. In the very heyday of physical and mental vigor what had he to look back upon but solemn plodding, and what could he look forward to but a straight and uneventful trail that in time dipped over the last hill? He had smoked the cigarette down to the end, risen and resigned to an astonished boss. Twenty minutes later he was riding forth, footloose and fancy free, neither knowing what he was to do or where he was to go. But he did know that the vast loneliness of the prairie impelled him to ride out and have a last taste of the heady, reckless days.

"What's life for?" he murmured now to the brassy sky. "A little work, a little to eat, a little to drink—and then a sleep. It ain't enough. Every man's got the right to look back on some piece of foolishness. Well, if I stay around Casabella, I'll get all the foolishness I can absorb. Storm brewing, clouds in the distance. It'll be a bloody welter when it gets going and nothing in God's green earth can stop it. If I was wise, I'd keep right on going. But I'm tired of being wise—and I'm looking for a horse." Range wars were always grim affairs, but while his mind condemned the impulse to stay, his blood pulsed with a tightening excitement.

He thought of Buck Manners, trying to match the inconsistencies of the man's nature. "Easy-going, packed full of deviltry, strong as a horse, laughs at most everything. But that grin conceals a heap of energy. I'd hate to be on the wrong side of any quarrel he was in. A left-handed, yellow-haired hellion. Nickum—he's true stuff, but why did he have to give me the razmataz?"

Something brought him out of his long study. At the last glance he had been surrounded by emptiness. Now, out of the northeast, grew a fan-shaped cloud with a black core, a little like the image of a baby cyclone snorting across the prairie. In time the black core became a solid, moving shape and that in turn shifted to individual riders abreast. They were aiming at him; he knew that because their angle of travel was always broadside to him as he jogged sedately along. He swept the country on all other sides and narrowed his hazel eyes. "Seem to think they have business with me. Wonder if this is to be a formal or informal party?" He shifted in the saddle, let his finger tips brush the butt of his gun, and pulled down the rim of his hat. His shadow grew longer and the burning rays of a sinking sun began to catch the back of his head. The party had swerved to cut in front of him. Never varying the even tempo of his march, he was presently confronted by ten Box M riders, Driver Haggerty and Heck Seastrom to the fore. He halted. Haggerty's stringy, unpleasant wedge of a face poked forward.