Ralph Compton - Death Rides a Chestnut Mare

“You’ll do, kid. The missus will feed you breakfast and supper in the kitchen. There’s five other men, and plenty of room in the bunkhouse.”

“Thanks,” Danielle said. “Am I allowed to keep my horse in your barn?”

“Yes,” said Levan. “There’s a couple of sacks of grain in the tack room.”

Danielle led the chestnut mare to the barn, found an empty stall, and took the time to rub the animal down. She was in no hurry to meet the five strangers in the bunkhouse. The five were seated around the stove in various stages of undress. One of the men took a look at her youthful face and laughed. Gus Haddock suddenly found himself face-to-face with a cocked, rock-steady Colt.

“What is it about me that you find so funny?” Danielle demanded.

“Not a thing, kid,” said Haddock, now serious. “Not a damn thing.”

“I’m Daniel Strange,” Danielle said, holstering the Colt. “Are any of you segundo ?”

“No,” said Dud Menges. “Sam Levan gives all the orders.”

Starting with himself, Menges introduced the small outfit to Danielle.

“Why are all of you hanging around in the bunkhouse?” Danielle asked. “Enough of the snow’s melted for you to be riding.” “We ride when Levan says,” said Warnell Prinz, “and he ain’t said.”

Danielle said no more. In the snow on the ground, and in the mud which would follow, it would be impossible for riders not to leave abundant horse tracks. At suppertime the outfit trooped into the kitchen, lining up to use the washbasin and towel. A thin woman was carrying dishes of food from the big stove to a long, X-frame table. Along each side of the table was a backless bench.

“Eppie,” said Levan, “this is Daniel Strange, a new rider I just hired.”

Eppie barely nodded, saying nothing. She looked exactly like the harried woman who might have written the pathetic letter Danielle had taken from Henry Levan’s saddlebag. It was an uncomfortable meal for Danielle, for the dark eyes of Eppie Levan seemed to have been stricken with a thousand years of heart-break and despair. Danielle was much younger than the other riders and suspected Eppie Levan was seeing in her the faces of her own sons who seemed lost to her. Suppose Brice Levan gave up his outlaw ways and, in coming home, found himself face-to-face with Danielle? Could she kill him for his part in murdering her father? After supper, the outfit returned to the bunkhouse. There were enough bunks for a dozen men, and Danielle chose an empty one farthest from the stove. It would be reason enough to sleep fully dressed.

Levan’s Sheep Ranch. October 10, 1870.

When the snow had melted and most of the mud had dried up, Sam Levan came looking for his riders.

“I want all of you to spend the next few days riding from one sheep camp to another,” said Levan. “I know what Markwardt’s trying to do. He reckons if he costs me enough, I’ll come after him and his bunch. Then he’ll call in the law.”

“You reckon they aim to rim-rock more sheep, then,” Warnell Prinz said.

“I do,” said Levan. “They know I can’t go on taking losses like the last one, and that I can’t call in the law without proof. Our only chance, short of attacking the Markwardt outfit, is to catch them stampeding our sheep. Then I figure we’re justified in shooting the varmints without answering to the law.”

It was sound thinking, and Danielle admired the old sheepman for seeking a way out of what seemed an impossible situation without breaking the law. Danielle followed the rest of the outfit along the Rio to the first sheep camp, and seeing no danger there, they rode on to the second and third camps. Still, there was no sign of trouble.

“Instead of three separate camps,” said Danielle, “why not combine all the shepherds and all the sheep into one bunch? They’d be easier to protect, wouldn’t they?”

“Kid, you don’t know much about sheep, do you?” Gus Haddock said. “Get all them woolies into one pile, and they’d eat the grass down to the roots and beyond. Scatterin’ them into three camps, they still got to be moved every other day. That’s why we need the range the damn cattlemen don’t aim for us to have.”

“I can understand why they feel that way,” said Danielle. “Does it bother you, forcing sheep onto range where they’re not wanted, where you might be shot?”

“Kid, there ain’t nothin’ sacred about cows,” Haddock said, “and I don’t like or dislike sheep. I’m here because it pays a hundred a month an’ found. I been shot at for a hell of a lot less.”

Haddock’s companions laughed, and it gave Danielle something to think about. Suppose the rest of the men she had sworn to kill had sold their guns somewhere on the frontier? Already, she could understand a drifting rider’s need to hire on somewhere for the winter, but it made her task far more difficult. She had no way of knowing whether or not Brice Levan would ever come home. Riding with outlaws, perhaps he was already dead. There had to be a limit as to how long she could remain with Levan, before giving up and moving on.

Reaching the third sheep camp and finding all was well, there was nothing to do except return to the first camp.

“What about tonight?” Danielle asked. “After we’ve been in the saddle all day, are we expected to ride all night?”

“So far,” said Warnell Prinz, “the cattlemen have only stampeded the sheep during the daytime. We don’t know why.”

“I do,” Sal Wooler said. “Them Mex herders has got dogs. Without ’em, it’s hell tryin’ to keep all them sheep headed the same way. I wouldn’t want to try it at night.”

Three days and nights passed without the Markwardt outfit bothering any of the three sheep camps. The strain was beginning to tell on old Sam Levan, and he spoke to all his riders at suppertime.

“I’m a patient man, but if Markwardt’s bunch ain’t made some move by sundown tomorrow, then we’re goin’ to.”

“I reckon you aim to rim-rock some cows, then,” said Dud Menges.

“Only if we have to,” Levan said. “We’ll start with a stampede tomorrow night. I want his herd scattered from here to the Mexican border. If that don’t get his attention, then we’ll try somethin’ else.”

“Then he’ll be sendin’ the law after us,” said Gus Haddock.

“He can’t send the law after us for stampedin’ his cows any more than we could send the law after him for rim-rocking our sheep,” Levan said. “At least his damn cows will be alive, wherever they end up. That’s more than can be said for my sheep.”

“Unless it rains, they’ll have tracks to follow,” said Sal Wooler.

“Let them follow,” Levan said. “I want to put them in the position of having to break the law by coming after us.”

“You mean with guns,” said Jasper Witheres.

“That’s exactly what I mean,” Levan said. “When an hombre shoots at you, whatever his reason, then you got the right to shoot back. It’s just the way things is.”

Supper was a somber meal. Eppie Levan looked more harried than ever, and each of the men seemed lost in his own thoughts. Danielle had hired out her gun, and now there was a very real chance she would be using it for a purpose she had never intended.

The Adolph Markwardt Ranch. October 14, 1870.

“Startin’ tonight,” Markwardt told his riders, “we’re going to be watching our herds after dark.”

“Hell,” said Oscar McLean, “there ain’t but six of us. Who’s gonna be watching them in the daytime?”

“Nobody,” Markwardt said. “You don’t need daylight to scatter cows from here to yonder, and I reckon Sam Levan knows that. If him and his outfit shows up on my range with mischief on their minds, then we can gun the varmints down.”