Ernest Haycox - Ernest Haycox - Ultimate Collection - Western Classics & Historical Novels

Night found him traveling again, this time with both horses, striking straight across the mesa and down the eastern slope into the Flats. After leaving Chatto, he had picked up the four cows and hazed them five miles or better from their original grounds, and left them in a particularly remote and rugged section of the country. Chatto had returned toward the six pines, but Lin, ever watchful, had made a particular point of surveying all points of the compass before revisiting his cave.

Equally cautious was his night trip into the Flats. Instead of going in a direct line, which would have brought him close to the Chatto camp, he wasted the better part of two hours in detouring southward. By the time the stars all came out he was a great distance down the bench and many miles removed from the scene of the day's work.

As he traveled he caught sight of a locomotive headlight far across the Flats, hardly more than a pin-prick in the gloom. Presently that winked out and left him with no evidence of human company in all the vast extent of the land ahead. The wind sprang up and the coyotes commenced their dismal yammering on all sides of him. Now and then he flushed a jackrabbit from its shelter, at which the faithful Brimstone snorted a little and danced aside. Otherwise he rode in lonely silence, broken only by his own casual remarks to the horse.

When at last he reached the low ground it was nearing midnight and here he displayed once more the extraordinary caution that had been with him ever since leaving the valley. Dismounting, he slipped away into the darkness, crouched against the ground and surveyed the dim distances for fifteen or twenty minutes. The result was satisfactory. Returning to the pony, he changed his course somewhat and went at a faster pace. Thus, in two hours he sighted the vague outlines of a water tank standing alone on the desert. From the tank came the steady dripping of water, tie stopped and whistled softly.

Out of the shadows he had his answer. "Yeah, Lin?"

"Uh-huh. Glad you got back on time. Thought maybe you'd have difficulty getting off the train. Saw its headlight from the bench and it didn't seem to stop."

A man's boot clanked on the iron rails and presently Lin had the silhouette of an extremely tall, thin body by his side. He got down and gripped the newcomers hand. A slow, drawling voice pronounced a few noncommittal words.

"Had a difficult time and that's a fact. Come on the freight so I wouldn't attract attention. Gave the brakie five dollars to drop me off here, but the engineer was trying to make time across this level piece so I had to jump for it. Scattered my luggage a hundred yards. Busted all my cigars and left me in a right mean temper towards all railroads. Fact. Hope the engine busts a gadget and the crew has to walk home."

Lin chuckled. "Keep your temper, Bill." He drew up the lead horse and spoke with sudden eagerness. "Don't hold back the important news. What's the verdict?"

A long arm draped itself across Lin's shoulder. "Fellow, it's the true dope. So far as we've gone, everything is pay dirt, a mile wide and a mile deep. Prospects? By god, the prospects are amazing. If the next few places we tackle show the same result, there'll be plenty of backing just as soon as we need it. How's that?"

Lin took off his hat and sighed profoundly. "I could kiss a sheep, Bill. Happy days! But we're going to have to move fast. There's a fly in the gravy."

The tall man grunted. "What's the matter?"

Lin squatted on his heels and related the irrigation boom in a few terse, disgusted words. "Now you see what's going to happen? This water company will get everything all cluttered up with its ditches and laterals. First thing you know there'll be a lot of money sunk uselessly. When the time comes for us to start our little venture, it's going to be that much more expensive on all hands and the cook. I tried to head them off but the crooked rascal who's heading the thing yelled me down."

"Who?"

"James J. Lestrade, no less."

Bill whistled. "Lin, I heard something at the main office concerning that gent. Maybe he ain't just interested in water, either."

Lin stood up. "Think he's got wind of this same idea of ours?"

"I'd bet a hundred dollars he has."

Lin was silent for a time, trying to reconcile this news with Lestrade's interest in water. "Can't just see how he figures to join the two," he said at last.

"Devious ways have a manner of joining, some time or later," the lanky Bill observed. "Let's get somewhere. I'm dying to smoke."

"Jump on the horse. You'll have to ride him bareback."

Bill collected his luggage and put a leg up. "What's our next move?"

Lin Ballou led the way north, parallel with the mesa. "We'll reach that old Miller house—it was abandoned last fall, you remember—by daylight. Then we'll stay over till it's dark again. All the ground we've got to cover now is close to Powder and it means night work and plenty of caution. Ought to get it finished in four-five days, shouldn't we?"

"Uh-huh."

"Then," Lin went on, sweeping the darkness with watchful eyes, "you can hoof it back to headquarters and get the final decision. We've got to move pretty fast from now on. While you're gone, I've got other irons to heat."

"Lead on," Bill urged. "I want to get to shelter where I can light a smoke. I'm dying for a little nicotine in my system."

A heavy voice said, "Ho, you fool horse," and wheeled directly by the shanty door, at the same time calling out in no particularly subdued tone, "You there, Chatto?"

Beauty moved from the shanty, grumbling. "Damn it, Lestrade, ain't you never going to take care how you talk? Folks can hear you a mile away."

Lestrade sat in the saddle. "Been a policy of mine to let folks know I'm present, so it's kind of difficult to tone down. Don't you worry, Chatto. Nobody around this neck of the woods."

"Can't tell about that," Chatto said. "Folks is often where they ain't got no business being. For instance, you and me."

"Well, now, I wouldn't say we've got no business here. Fact is, we have some right important business."

"All set for next Tuesday, like you said?"

"That's right. How you coming?"

"Fair enough. We'll have nigh forty head."

Lestrade said, "Uh-huh," in a pleased tone and, much to Chatto's disgust, lit a cigarette. "You drive 'em down to the East Flats loading pens Tuesday night. My cows'll be already there. I'll jerk everybody away from the place except the foreman and a right close-mouthed man. Wednesday they'll be shipped. Think you can do it in time?"

"Sure. We got an addition to our happy family."

Lestrade jerked the cigarette from his mouth and said, "Who's that?" in a savage voice. "Addition? You fool, you mean to say you took in another partner? Without my knowledge?"

"Oh, I ain't told him no thing about your connection with us. He knows there's another party—name unknown. I said I'd see said party before giving out any more information. But, you see, this fellow's in our own line of business and we can't have no opposition. That'd create a fuss sooner or later. Easiest thing was to take him in. Besides, Nig and me, we needed a little more help."

"Who is he?"

"Brace yourself for a shock," Chatto warned, grinning through the dark. "The gent is none other than your friend Lin Ballou."

"By Godfrey!" Lestrade exclaimed in complete amazement. "Lin—why, Lin—I thought he was honest. You must be joking."

"The joke's on us. I figured him honest, too. But after that affair at the dance, and after I caught him red-handed, tampering with some of Offut's critters, I sure changed my mind."

Lestrade was lost in several moments' silence. The horse moved beneath him uneasily. "No, I didn't figure him to be a rustler. But I did figure he had something else on his mind besides prospecting. That's just a blind."