The Floating Outfit 10 Page 4

  ‘Herd’s road-branded and ready to go, Cap’n.’

  ‘I mean the chuck wagon.’

  ‘Waal, I’ve been sleeping with my sourdough keg for the past two weeks and she’s riz to please the eye. I’m full loaded and me louse’s back at the spread putting antelope grease on the hubs of the bed wagon. You say the word and we can light out come sunup tomorrow.’

  Dusty looked at the men who formed a half-circle at the foot of the porch steps. All stood waiting for him to speak.

  ‘All right, boys, I’ll read you the scriptures here instead of at the spread. Then, if any of you don’t like them, you can pull out and save a ride. First, I’m trail boss. And the name, as you likely know, is Dusty Fog. Miz Holland here’s going with us as spread’s rep.’

  There was a startled mumble from the men, Dusty waited until it died then carried on:

  ‘She’ll be treated as one of the hands. Mark’s my segundo, and the Ysabel Kid rides scout, helped by your good friend, Kiowa. Billy Jack or Kiowa will be at point with Mark. The rest of you will ride swing, flank and drag turnabout. The remuda’s held at the Rocking H for any of you who need a mount. We’ll hold us a choosing match as soon as we get there, taking it in the order you took on. Some of you have rode for Colonel Charlie Goodnight, and you’ll know his way. I learned under him and it’s my way too. I want to pull out tomorrow so we haven’t time to draw up articles. If any of you don’t know Colonel Charlie’s rules and want to, ask Billy Jack, he’ll likely tell you.’

  The men muttered their agreement to this. Every man had heard of the stringent rules of conduct laid down by the old master of trail drive work, Colonel Charles Goodnight. They covered the man’s life from the time he signed on to when he paid off, and protected both his and the owner’s interests. They all agreed with the rules, for they knew that their lives would be made easier by following them.

  ‘How about likker, Cap’n?’ It was Dude who asked.

  ‘Any toted goes in the wagon and Salt’ll hand it out.’

  This was agreed upon by all the hands. A trail drive was dangerous enough without having a drunk on it.

  ‘If that’s all, I’ll buy a drink. Then we head back for the spread.’ Dusty stepped aside and the men all started forward across the porch towards the hotel doors.

  ‘Hey, you!’ A man rode towards the porch, a big, heavily built man wearing dirty range clothes and belting a low-tied Navy Colt. He halted the bay he was riding and the other two horses stopped at the same time; they were all nervous-looking animals, the whites of their eyes showing.

  ‘Who’s bossing the drive?’

  Thora bit her lip as she looked the man over; she had seen him before somewhere, but couldn’t remember where.

  Dusty was also studying the man and replied. ‘I am.’ His attention was now on the muzzles of the horses, not the man.

  ‘You need a wrangler?’ The question was directed to Thora more than Dusty. ‘Man across the street telled me the lady was boss.’

  ‘I’m trail boss—and we’re full-hired.’

  ‘Yeah?’ The newcomer’s face twisted in a sneer. ‘Waal, happen the lady’ll make you change your mind. See, a friend of her’n telled me to look her up and mention his name.’

  ‘Mister’—Dusty’s voice was still the same soft drawl but there was a subtle difference to it now—‘Miz Holland hired me as trail boss on the understanding that I handled the hiring and firing of the crew. We’ve got a wrangler and, even if we hadn’t, I wouldn’t take on a man who uses a ghost-cord on his mount.’

  Thora stared at the horses; she had heard the ranch crew talk about ghost-cords. She could see the marks the thin cord had made as it was tied around each horse’s tongue and gums, under the lower jaw and the ends carried back to be used as reins. The ghost cord was an instrument of torture and no cowhand worth his salt would use one. The ranch owners also hated the use of the cord, for it either broke the horse’s spirit or turned it into a killer.

  The man spat into the dust, his hand falling casually towards his side. ‘Is that right?’

  ‘Try it!’ Dusty’s flat, barked warning was accompanied by a click as his right-hand gun came out and lined.

  The man stared at the long barrel of the Army Colt; it had come out faster than he had ever seen a gun drawn before. Having expected to take the other by surprise, it came as a sudden and nasty shock to him that he had failed, and failed badly.

  ‘All right,’ he growled, holding his hand well clear of the gun and turning his face to Thora’s. ‘Happen you can talk some sense to your trail boss. Like I said before, this friend of your’n—’

  The color drained from Thora’s face, she knew who the man was, and who the mysterious friend was. If the Texans heard the name they would never drive for her.

  ‘I’m getting quick sick of you.’ Thora hadn’t noticed the Ysabel Kid moving forward to her side. He stood there now, his soft-drawled words biting through the other’s speech and halting it.

  Looking the dark-dressed, innocent-featured youngster over the man made a mistake. He thought he was dealing with some dressed-up button who was still wet behind the ears.

  ‘Shy out!’ he hissed. ‘I’m talking to the white—’

  The Ysabel Kid went over the hitching rail in a smooth dive which carried the man from his saddle and brought them both crashing to the ground. Whilst the man landed hard on his back, the Ysabel Kid lit down on his feet with an almost catlike agility. Crouching lightly on the balls of his feet, Loncey Dalton Ysabel waited for the man to come up and carry on.

  Cursing, he came up, his hand fanning towards the butt of his gun. Even as he did so, Dusty roared out, ‘Lon! No!’

  The sun glinted on eleven-and-a-half inches of razor-sharp steel as the Kid lunged in. His knife made a ripping arc faster than the other man’s hand dropped. At the last instant, it swerved and cut through the holster flap. The weight of the Colt swung the severed holster over and the man’s hand clawed at an empty space. The gun slid from leather and fell into the dust. Turning, the man leapt towards the rifle stuck in his saddle boot.

  Mark Counter vaulted the rail, his hand shooting out to grip the man by the collar and hurl him backwards. ‘Don’t be loco, hombre!’ he snapped. ‘Lon could just as easy of killed you the first time. Don’t tempt him any more—he fails real easy.’

  The man looked up and saw just what Mark meant. The Ysabel Kid was still standing in that knife-fighter’s crouch, his dark face as hard and savage as a Comanche Dog soldier looking for a paleface scalp. He had seen a couple of knife-fighters, this big man, and knew that here was a master hand, one that it would be best to steer clear of.

  Slowly he relaxed, his face twisted in a mask of hatred. ‘All right,’ he snarled, ‘I’m going and I won’t forget this.’

  ‘Happen you won’t,’ the Kid growled back. ‘Not when things are even you won’t.’ The man mounted his horse and turning it headed off.

  The trail-drive crew had been interested spectators of all this. Billy Jack looked sheepish and holstered his right-hand gun. Salt leered at the miserable-looking rider, he for one being satisfied. His judgment had been vindicated. In a fight, it had been the Bowie knife the Ysabel Kid first reached for.

  The cowhands trooped into the bar, and Dusty stood by Thora, watching them go. In Texas in the 1870s, a lady didn’t enter the barroom and she would have to wait until they returned. She was pleased to note that the diversion had taken the men’s minds off the statements the newcomer had made.

  Dusty stopped at the door and turned back. ‘You look worried, Thora. Don’t be. That kind of bum always tries a game like that. He’d knew you were from the north and allowed he could get taken on if you thought he knew some friend.’

  ‘What do the men make of what he said?’

  ‘About the same as I did. It’s your business and none of our’n.’

  Thora watched Dusty enter the bar and sat down, her legs feeling suddenly weak. The man had known a friend of hers all
right—a friend? A man she hated, a man who could lose her every man Dusty had hired. She felt sick and scared, realizing that in the future she might meet this mysterious friend.

  Dusty found himself leaning on the bar alongside Billy Jack. The tall hand still looked as miserable as ever.

  ‘Thought we’d see us some blood out there,’ Billy Jack remarked, his tones showing that he was disappointed that they hadn’t. ‘The Kid’s knife’s enough to turn a man’s blood cold. Happen you should have let him use it; I just recollected where I last saw that hombre. Couldn’t place him at first, then I got him.’

  ‘Where?’

  ‘With Kliddoe!’

  ‘Kliddoe?’ Dusty spat the word out. ‘You sure on that?’

  ‘Nigh on. Leastwise, he looked powerful like one of the bunch that got clear when ole Shangai Pierce and his crew hit them.’

  Dusty shook his head, ‘I can’t see that, amigo. No Kliddoe man dare show his face in Texas.’

  ‘Thought that myself,’ Billy Jack agreed. ‘He looked powerful like one of them. He warn’t from the south either.’

  Before Dusty could go further into the matter he was called on by one of the other men to clear up some point of a drive they had been on together. Then, when this was cleared up, he told the men to get their horses and they would head for the Rocking H.

  ~*~

  In a saloon along the street, Toon and his foreman sat by the window and watched the cavalcade of men riding by, headed for Rocking H. Toon wasn’t in any too good a temper; and it didn’t improve when he saw that not only had he failed to stop the Rocking H hiring, but that they had taken the cream of the hands in town.

  ‘What now?’ Hendley inquired.

  Toon thought it over for a moment and an idea formed in his mind. ‘Go down to the Doc’s and pay off Wren first thing. Then we’re going to slow Rocking H down some.’

  Hendley stiffened. ‘You ain’t going against that bunch with guns, are you?’ There was a lamentable lack of enthusiasm in the foreman’s tones.

  ‘Nope, brains. You get me that damned half-breed Dan Twofeathers. Get him here real fast. If he don’t want to come, tell him I’ll have him jailed for slow-elking.’

  ‘What have you in mind, Thad?’ Hendley had uneasy visions of stampeding the Rocking H herd, and of the consequences. He was brave enough, but the thought of matching lead with that crew was more than he could stand.

  ‘Suppose they was to lose something real important to them?’ Toon answered. ‘Something that’d take them a week or more to replace, and that they can’t do without.’

  ‘Like what?’

  ‘Like their sourdough keg.’

  Four – Choosing Match

  Ben Holland sat in his wheelchair and looked over his range. He was on the porch of his house accompanied by his foreman, a tall, hard-looking man called Sam Starken. Their attention was on the dust cloud which was coming rapidly towards the ranch and along the town trail.

  Ben was still healthy looking, and his wide shoulders set back squarely. His time in the wheelchair had left hard, bitter lines round his mouth and there were worry creases around the corners of his eyes. Even Thora didn’t know how worried Ben had been since his return from Dodge. The worries of the ranch were not great, Sam Starken and the crew being able to handle anything that came up on the home range. Getting the herd to market was another thing though. That herd meant badly needed money to the Rocking H, money that couldn’t be got in any other way.

  ‘That’s Miz Thora,’ Sam Starken growled. ‘Got what looks like a full crew along with her.’

  Starken pushed his boss to the edge of the porch and Ben felt worried as he watched the men coming towards the ranch. Thora wasn’t experienced in matters of this sort, and there was no telling what sort of men she would take on. At best, he hoped that they might get enough hands to allow him to send half the crew along and keep the new men on Rocking H to handle the cattle.

  The first thing that became obvious was that the riders Thora was bringing were at least all good horsemen. As they came nearer, both men began to recognize some of them.

  ‘Damned if the gal ain’t a living wonder,’ Ben growled huskily. ‘She’s done took on Kiowa and Billy Jack both. There’s a pair to draw to.’

  Starken gulped hard: he knew the two men by reputation, but there were certain others he knew as friends. He could hardly believe the evidence of his eyes. ‘Got Red Tolliver there, ’n’ Duke Lane. If that ain’t Basin Jones, I’ll swan! Took with Kiowa and Billy Jack them three’d make a dandy full house.’

  Ben could not think how Thora had managed to hire such men; even the small man on the big paint had the air of a top hand. This last rider looked vaguely familiar to Ben, but he couldn’t place the face.

  The party came to a halt before the ranch house and fanned out into a rough half-circle. Ben looked around and felt even more amazement as the correct caliber of the riders became apparent to his range-wise eyes. They must represent the pick of the town; in fact, they would be hard to match in Texas.

  The handsome, blonde giant on the blood bay swung down and turned to help Thora from the wagon. She came forward and the small man on the paint rode up. ‘Howdy, Cousin Ben,’ he greeted. ‘Uncle Devil heard you needed some help and sent me along to ride trail boss for you.’

  Then Ben knew who the small man was and knew how these riders came to be here. ‘Howdy, Cousin Dusty.’ He held out his hand as the small man dismounted. ‘Real obliged to you for coming. This here’s my foreman, Sam Starken.’

  ‘Howdy, Sam.’ Dusty appraised the man with one quick, all-seeing glance, then got down to business. ‘Miss Thora allows the herd is ready to move. Happen you’ll let me take a horse from your remuda. I’ll head out and look it over.’

  ‘Sure, Dusty.’ Starken liked a man who got right straight down to business. ‘We’ll head out soon as you’re ready.’

  ‘Mark, Billy Jack.’ Dusty barked out, ‘I want you along with me. Lon, you take four of the hands and roust out the cable from the bed wagon, Lil Jackie, Tarbrush, I want the remuda handled as soon as I get back.’

  The Kid turned to Thora and sighed. ‘That’s how you tell a trail boss, ma’am. He can’t rest hisself and it surely hurts him to see the help rest.’

  Dusty looked his pard over in some disgust. ‘You’ve rested most of all your wicked and sinful young life. Time comes when a man has to start you in to working.’ Dusty, Mark and Billy Jack each cut a horse from the Rocking H remuda, saddled it and headed, with the foreman, to look over the herd.

  Thora went to stand by her husband and watched them go. ‘Did I do all right?’

  ‘Honey, nobody could have done better.’ She flushed at the praise, then shook her head. ‘I’m not too happy about either Billy Jack or Kiowa. I wouldn’t have taken them on. But Dusty did and I promised not to interfere. Do you know either of them?’

  ‘Heard of them both,’ Ben answered, a grin flickering round the corner of his lips in a way which Thora hadn’t seen since his return from Dodge. ‘Billy Jack rode segundo for Shangai Pierce that last drive, when they cut Kliddoe’s gang to doll rags. Kiowa used to ride for Ole Devil Hardin and for Clay Allison. They’re top hands, both of them, and they could get took on as segundo most any place they chose to go. There aren’t many better trail drivers in the west.’

  Thora turned her attention to what the other men were doing, some of the men were by the corral, examining the horses of the remuda, whilst others were helping unload their bedrolls from the wagon. The Kid and four men were at the second wagon and taking out a thick rope.

  Turning back, she told her husband what had happened in town. Ben listened without a word, only speaking when she asked, ‘How did Toon know I’d hired Dusty? In fact, I hadn’t even told Dusty he was hired.’

  ‘You didn’t have to tell him. When a hand throws his bedroll into the wagon he’s hired and part of the crew.’ Ben replied. ‘I’m not sorry that Dusty didn’t down Thad—he ain’t all tha
t bad a hombre.’

  ‘The other man who came,’ Thora licked her lips before she went on, ‘I recognized him. His name is Blount and he rode for Kliddoe. I was afraid he was going to tell the men about me. The Kid stopped him just in time.’

  Ben gripped her hand, seeing the fear in her eyes. ‘Honey, you don’t need to go north with the herd. You know that Kliddoe’s out again and that Dusty won’t let him collect any head tax.’

  ‘I know.’ The little she had seen of Dusty Fog told her that. ‘But, if it comes to the worst, I may be able to do something to help.’

  Starken escorted Dusty, Mark and Billy Jack out to the bottomlands where half the crew were holding the herd. Dusty looked the herd over from a distance; then they rode nearer and circled around. The cattle were all steers, long-horned, half-wild and well meated up. They would stand the long drive north with no trouble and, given luck, would reach Dodge City in first-class shape.

  ‘Be around three thousand head?’ Dusty guessed.

  ‘We road-branded three thousand two hundred, but happen a few more will have got in.’

  Mark had made an even more careful study of the cattle than Dusty had. More than the trail boss, the segundo had to be concerned with the cattle. Dusty, as trail boss, would have many problems on his mind; he had to handle the men, the remuda, any emergency that might come up. Mark was the man who would be mostly concerned with the cattle themselves.

  ‘Look real well, Sam,’ he finally remarked. ‘You don’t get so much tick trouble this far north?’

  ‘Not much and none this time of the year,’ Sam replied. ‘They’ll likely not die off afore you get to Dodge.’

  ‘Reckon your boys can handle the night herd for us, tonight, Sam?’ Dusty inquired as they headed back towards the ranch. ‘I’d like to give the trail crew a decent night’s sleep.’

  ‘Sure, I aimed to keep half the crew out. Don’t figure Thad Toon be loco enough to try scattering the herd, but he might.’