J. Edson - Ranch War

“Is this because I helped get your brother killed?” the girl asked Florence.

“Partly,” the blonde admitted. “Partly because you humiliated me in town. But mainly so that you meet with a fatal ‘accident.’ Naturally I’ll be horrified and distressed when I hear the news. But nobody can blame me if you get killed ‘accidentally’ while you’re snooping around my sawmill.”

“Reckon these two fellers’ll go along with you on doing it?”

“They will. Logger’s been blacklisted by every major timber company. He’ll never get another job. So he’ll do what I tell him to keep this one. And Mr. Vandor knows that he daren’t let you live. The Outfit wouldn’t like that at all. Start the saw, Logger. We’re going to fetch in the rest of the men from Burwell.”

“Sure, Miss Eastfield,” Logger answered.

“Hey, fatso!” Calamity called as Florence turned away. “You’d better hope this works, ’cause if it don’t and I get loose, I’m going to make you wish you’d never been born.”

Chapter 15 WHERE’VE THEY GOT THE GAL?

“TEND TO THE BLASTED HORSES, BUNJY!” MUTTERED the man assigned to that task by Vandor as he removed the last saddle. “Get me another ready! I’d’ve been better off working as a wrangler on a ranch.”

With that he let the third horse free in the corral. He had collected a rope from the bunkhouse and took his time in selecting then catching a mount for Vandor to use. While doing so, he looked at the sawmill and wondered what was happening inside. Still muttering, he leisurely saddled the horse and led it from the corral. About to replace the poles of the gate, a movement down the slope beyond the enclosure attracted his attention. Hand dropping to the butt of his Colt, he looked that way. With a grunt, he removed his hand. A dun gelding, riderless and without a saddle, was moving through the trees and bushes.

“Damn it!” Bunjy spat. “One of ’em must’ve got out. I’d best go get it or they’ll say I let it slip by me.”

With that, he fastened Vandor’s mount to the corral, closed the gate and picked up his rope. Walking toward the horse, he tried to think who owned it and how it had escaped. It must belong to the sawmill, no other horses strayed that far into the wooded slopes.

Drawing closer, Bunjy noticed that the dun appeared to have been hard-ridden and was lathered heavily. Not a particularly bright man, he failed to detect any special significance from the animal’s condition. It stood grazing beyond a thick, heavily foliaged dogwood bush. Advancing slowly and cautiously, so that he could get within rope-throwing distance, he had eyes for nothing but the horse.

Suddenly a hand and black-sleeved arm extended from beneath the bush and closed about Bunjy’s forward ankle as it touched the ground, giving a sharp tug at it. Tumbling forward, the man opened his mouth to yell. His arrival on the ground drove the breath from his lungs. To his ears came a rustling of the foliage, then a knee rammed into his spine and pinned him down. He felt his revolver jerked from the holster and tried to struggle. Apparently his unseen assailant had tossed the gun aside, for the same right hand which had removed it shoved off his hat and dug into his hair. Letting out a grunt, Bunjy prepared to cut loose with a louder sound as his head was dragged back and up. Before the shout could be uttered, he saw something which caused him to hurriedly revise his opinion. Passing slowly through his range of vision, the enormous, razor-sharp blade of a bowie knife sank and its cutting edge touched lightly against his tight-stretched throat.

“Make one sound and it’ll be your last!” growled a savage voice. “When I move my knee, roll over slow ’n’ easy.”

Feeling the knee and knife move, Bunjy obeyed. He knew that his assailant had not gone far, a view that was confirmed as he turned on to his back. A tall, bare-headed, black-dressed man dropped into a kneeling position astride Bunjy and the bowie knife’s point prodded under his chin. Held flat on the ground by the figure’s weight and threat of the knife, Bunjy stared up at an Indian-dark, savage face. Hearing footsteps approaching, Bunjy turned his head slowly. Any hopes of a rescue that he felt died as he saw Cash Trinian and a cowhand coming up the slope in his direction.

“Wha—How——?” Bunjy croaked.

“From where I’m sitting,” drawled the Ysabel Kid, “I’d say it was for me to be asking the questions.”

“And, mister,” Staff went on, holding the Kid’s rifle almost reverently, “was I you, I’d right quick ’n’ truthful come up with the answers. We’ve been riding too hard ’n’ fast to want lies.”

Clearly the young cowhand spoke from the bottom of his heart. In fact, Staff would never forget what he had just been through. Although able to ride almost from the time he could walk, the young cowhand had been hard pressed to keep up with his boss during the journey from Hollick City. Trinian, no mean hand on a horse, had at times been on the point of suggesting to the Kid that they make a slower pace.

On being told the news of Calamity’s capture, the Kid, Trinian and Staff had reduced their horses’ burdens to a minimum. Carrying only a reserve of ammunition, they had set out for the sawmill. Born and raised in Hollick County, Trinian had led his companions by a shorter, more direct route than that taken by Vandor’s party. The way they had come did not offer easy traveling and they had crossed areas that would have been impossible to any but the finest horsemen. Avoiding the river trail, they had missed the men sent to cover it by Vandor.

When Trinian had announced that the sawmill lay up the next ridge, the Kid had suggested that they should scout the area on foot. The fact that Vandor had taken Calamity alive hinted that she would still be that way. For her rescuers to be discovered might prove fatal to the girl.

So the Kid had gone ahead, silently as a raiding Comanche. Seeing Bunjy leading the horses to the corral, the Kid realized that there was a chance of gaining information. Stalking the man would be difficult as there was a stretch of open ground to cover. So the Kid had decided that, if he could not reach Bunjy, the gunslinger must come to him.

With that in mind, Staff had been instructed to remove the saddle and bridle from his horse. Taking the animal, the Kid had led it up the slope until sure that the man in the corral would see it. Then he had hidden himself under the dogwood bush to await developments. Bunjy had responded as required and the Kid now possessed the means of obtaining information.

“Where’re they holding the gal?” the Kid demanded.

“What g——?” Bunjy croaked.

Instantly the position of the knife changed, its point going to the center of the man’s face.

“It’s your nose,” the Kid remarked with an icy casualness that warned he was not bluffing.

“Sh—They took her into the sawmill!” Bunjy yelped. “I dunno why or——”

“Sit up,” ordered the Kid, coming to his feet.

Obediently, Bunjy forced himself into a sitting position. Behind him, Staff raised the Kid’s rifle and drove it downward. The butt cracked against the top of Bunjy’s skull and he flopped backward limply.

“Hawg-tie him,” ordered the Kid. “Why in hell didn’t you whomp him with your own gun?”

“And chance busting it?” Staff replied, handing over the Winchester and kneeling to carry out the Kid’s instructions.

At first, during the ride from the ranch to Hollick City, Staff had tended to be cold and distant toward the Kid. The young cowhand could not see why his boss had needed to ask a Texan to help them hand the sawmill bunch their needings. Before they had reached the town, Staff’s opinion had begun to change. The way the Kid had handled the white stallion started the change and nothing Staff had seen since caused him to alter his view that, Texan or not, the Kid would do to ride the river with. Impressed by the Kid’s ability as he had been while watching the capture of Bunjy, Staff answered the Kid’s complaint in a typical cowhand manner.