Ernest Haycox - The Greatest Westerns of Ernest Haycox

Clint hitched up his belt and started afoot across the rough terrain. It was confusing country and a little way off he turned to identify the bowl in which his horse was hidden; then he pressed on, rising and falling with the rugged pitch. Dead Man was a naked, treeless ridge with a series of spines divided by deep depressions; thus it was Clint had only a partial view of the country immediately about him. Going to the south, he came upon a round and grassy bowl fit to hold fifteen or twenty head of cattle compactly; skirting it, he observed the charred circle of an old campfire at the bottom.

But he refused to go down for a closer look. Taking to a runway gouged out by winter's rain, he fell into a jog trot until warned by a blank cliff ahead that he was nearly arrived at the main pass.

He left the runway, angled for a more rocky stretch and flattened himself full length on the ground, shoulders between a widely split stone and chin almost hooked over the rim of the pass. Some distance below and eastward the three riders had halted to confront a fourth who seemed to have made his appearance from the southward reaches of Dead Man. This was Curly, white face visible beneath the tipped hat; the others had their backs to Clint, but he thought he recognized Studd by the man's bulky torso. They were gesturing freely. The restless Curly kept cutting the air with his quirt and his horse shifted. Then all four had veered and faced a fissure leading into the pass as another man rode quickly down into view and halted them. Clint half rose and fell back with a long sigh of pure astonishment. His eyes narrowed and all his muscles tightened up.

"Good gosh, who will it be next? I don't believe this, but it must be so."

All five stood in a circle. The parley kept on for a quarter hour, at the end of which time the fifth man turned abruptly and disappeared whence he had emerged. Curly made a swashbuckling circle in the air with his arm and climbed a southward trail; the original three turned down the main road, backtracking for the prairie. When they rode directly beneath Clint, he recognized them all—Studd, Shander and Haggerty. As long as he had sight of them he waited, then rose and cut back for his original point of observation. At that location he rolled another cigarette and settled down to long watchfulness and grim reflection.

"Farther I go into this mess the worse it gets. But what in hell is the reason behind all this?"

The three had reached the fort again and were up to something. One man pulled away and galloped in a looping course toward Angels. "Must be Shander, going home," Clint reflected. "But it might be Studd or Haggerty hitting into town. Now what?"

The crack of a shot came thinly back. A second rider turned the fort and spurred due north, paralleling the ridge and closing upon it. Clint watched him until the man had gone around the curve of the bench land; but there was ample this bright morning to keep his attention occupied. A line of horsemen streamed down from the recesses of Dead Man a few miles south of Clint's position and aimed for the fort. As they arrived there, the party split into fragments and scattered over the prairie, heading toward Box M.

"Light begins to dawn," said Clint. "They're looking into the arroyos. Who for? Me. Somebody got wind of my whereabouts and squealed. Worse and worse. How is a man to make a move against Shander under such circumstances? Hell."

Far off a rider popped from the earth and came along; a similar miracle happened at a more northerly point of the horizon. Clint shook his head dubiously. "Scouts. Probably been posted in gopher holes all night. Or all week, for that matter. Who knows? I begin to see the ramifications of this system. An almost unbeatable play."

The morning passed slowly. Noon came. Curly's men were so many dark points moving restlessly over the chrome-yellow prairie, cutting endless circles and tangents. Later they shifted, converged into a solid group. Apparently a trail had been struck, for the group pounded back, flanked the fort once and stretched out for Dead Man's Range, aiming squarely at Clint. He shifted on the ground, lips tightening. "Got a smell of me. Well, it will do them no good. I can play tag in this stuff all day long."

Apparently the party arrived at the same conclusion. At the foot of the bench it halted, sent out desultory searchers to right and left and waited. The baked soil gave up nothing; Clint's pony tracks had petered out on hardpan and rock. By and by the party swung back. Clint relaxed. Some sort of communication was being established with Shander's ranch, for a rider came rapidly up from that direction, laying a thin ribbon of dust to his rear. At about the same time another rider hurried from the fort and drove straight for the main pass of Dead Man. Clint calculated all these with puzzled attention; somebody yonder was in a big sweat. Apparently a great many strings had to be pulled together.

"Don't know much more than I did in the beginning," he soliloquized. "But I've got to figure this thing out straight or make an awful bobble. According to what I heard last night, they mean to make some sort of play around here this evening. Now, it's leaked out that I'm in these parts. They figure I possibly know what they aimed to do. Therefore, they won't do it. They'll do something else. Or will try? That's a question. Clint, my boy, you'd better get the right answer before the shades of night fall thick and fast. If they don't go through with the original business, what might they do, and where would they do it? Sounds like the talk of a crazy man—"

Activity slackened off yonder as the afternoon went along and the sun slanted into the west. It was siesta time, when the cycle of life reached its second lethargic stage. In spite of himself, Clint drowsed a little, eyes half closed against the glare and his mind worrying away on his problem. The patient pony moved around the depression; Clint swept the rutty area of the ridge behind him and once more took up his post. He thought he saw something away off in Box M direction and pulled down the brim of his hat for a fairer view.

Thus, by the flash of a second and the rise of an arm, did he miss catching sight of an object that rose from cover and quickly fell back, about three hundred yards to his right rear. A little later Driver Haggerty's sour, stringy face lifted above the rocks again and fastened on the unwarned Charterhouse. In the man's look was a coldness and the unwinking directness of a reptile.

Over a period of fully five minutes he remained in this motionless posture, only his glance swinging from Charterhouse to the rocks near by. It were as if he thoroughly weighed every possibility and entrapping circumstance that might defeat his objective. Having satisfied himself, he rolled his body around to study the country whence he had come. His horse was a quarter mile off and though there was a rifle in the saddle boot—for men of Casabella never rode without long arms—it was too much of a trip to return and get the gun. It would have to be a matter of revolvers.

Not that Haggerty regretted the choice; in many ways he was a patient man, extraordinarily so where his private vengeance was concerned. Finding Charterhouse had not been accident; early in the morning he had learned of Charterhouse being around Fort Carson, and while Curly elected to scour the prairie, he had posted along the ridge, entered a convenient draw and gained the top. His own theory was that if Charterhouse still remained anywhere near the fort, it would be in a position of some worth, both high enough to scan the country and near enough to the fort to observe what went on. Being shrewd himself and very tricky, he credited Charterhouse with the same kind of ability.

Therefore, he had started away north on the ridge and advanced by tentative, guarded stages, always hugging the rim. Nothing could have demonstrated his stolid, Indian-like fixity of purpose more clearly; he had started at sunrise of the day and all through the intervening hours he had stalked onward. It was now four o'clock or better. A small sigh of satisfaction came out of his thin lips. Lifting his body with the sinuousness of a lizard, he half rolled and half pitched into the next pothole.