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  ‘Out back, grazing, I’ll show you.’

  ‘I’ve seen a couple of hosses afore, gal, can likely tell them from a cow, happen the cow’s not a muley. I’ll hitch a hoss to your buggy for you.’

  Freda smiled. ‘I’ll come along, there’s a muley cow or two out back and I wouldn’t want to drive into town behind it.’

  ‘Pick a couple of saddle horses out for us, Mark,’ Dusty put in. ‘No sense in going in there shouting who we are.’

  ‘Yo!’

  With the old cavalry reply Mark turned and left the room with Freda on his heels. Lasalle watched her go, then turned to Dusty with a worried look in his eyes.

  ‘I’ve never seen Freda act that way,’ he said. ‘It’s — well—.’

  ‘Yeah, I know,’ grinned Dusty. ‘I’ve seen girls get that way around Mark afore. Don’t worry, it won’t get serious and you can trust Mark.’ He nodded to the old Le Mat carbine on the wall. ‘Does that relic work?’

  Indignant at the slur on his prized Le Mat, Lasalle forgot his daughter’s infatuation for Mark Counter and headed to the wall. He lifted down the Le Mat and walked to the table.

  ‘Work!’ he snorted. ‘I’ll say it works. And I’ll show Tring just how well if he comes back today.’

  Dusty grinned. ‘Way him and his bunch took off,’ he drawled, ‘they were toting birdshot and they won’t feel like riding anyplace today.’

  With that he took up the young gunhand’s discarded Army Colt. He turned the weapon in his hands, checking its chamber was full loaded and that the weapon worked. It had some dirt in it, but the Colt 1860 Army revolver was a sturdy weapon and took more than a bit of dirt to put it out of working condition. He rubbed the dirt off the revolver, set the hammer at half cock and turned the chamber, making sure it would rotate properly.

  ‘Here, let me handle that,’ Lasalle said. ‘You said the Kid used the shotgun on Double K?’

  ‘Both barrels and a good ounce of birdshot, way they took to hollering when it sprayed out,’ Dusty answered. ‘So shove in some powder and pour a load of buckshot on top this time. It doesn’t fan out but it’s a mite more potent close up.’

  Outside Mark caught the best two of the ranch’s small bunch of saddle stock and led them back to the house. He slung his saddle blanket on one horse, then the double girthed range rig while Freda watched. He felt her eyes on him and hoped she wasn’t going to get too involved in romance that could have no successful end.

  Mark did not mind a mild flirtation but he made a rule never to become involved with a sweet, innocent and naive girl like Freda. In his travellings around the west he had seen, and known intimately, a number of women who were either famous already, or would be one day. They were all mature women who knew what time of day it was and knew better than to expect anything permanent to come of romance with a man like him.

  For all his worries Mark did the girl less than justice. Freda did not think of herself as being halfway towards marrying him. Some woman’s instinct warned her it would be no use falling in love with a man like Mark. Yet she wanted to be near him, to see how he walked and talked, so that she might know the feeling again if it came with a more marriageable man’s presence.

  She pointed out the harness horse and helped Mark hitch it to the small buckboard wagon. Then they walked back to the house to find her father sitting at the sitting-room table with a formidable collection of weapons before him.

  ‘We’re ready to go, Dusty,’ she said.

  ‘Reckon you can hold down the house while we’re gone, George?’ Dusty asked her father.

  ‘Can I?’ growled Lasalle. ‘I reckon with old Bugle here to give warning and all this artillery I just might be able to.’

  ‘Keep the shotgun handy then. It’s got buckshot down the barrels — I saw to that.’

  Freda poked her tongue out at Dusty and headed for the door. He grinned, took up his hat and followed her out. Lasalle came to the kitchen door, the La Mat carbine resting on his arm and the Army Colt thrust into his waistband. Freda could see the change in her father now. He looked almost as young and happy as he had on his leaves during the war, before being taken prisoner and sent to a Yankee hell-hole prisoner-of-war camp.

  At first Freda kept up a light-hearted flow of banter with the two men as they rode by her on borrowed horses. They kept to the wheel-rut track the buckboard carved into the ground on many trips to Barlock, travelling across good range country with water, grass and a good few head of long-horn cattle grazing in sight of them. Freda saw the way Dusty and Mark watched the range, studying it with keen and careful eyes, watching for some sign of approaching danger, even while they laughed and joked with her.

  Not until they were halfway to town did Freda mention the trouble.

  ‘Why did you stay on to help us, Dusty?’ she asked.

  ‘It could be because I like you folks and don’t take to Double K shoving you around,’ he replied.

  ‘It wouldn’t be because of that fence, too?’

  ‘That’s part of it,’ Dusty agreed. ‘The range has always been open and I’d hate to see it fenced. There’s no need. A man’s cattle can roam, feed anywhere the graze is good and not cut the grass down to its roots because they’re hemmed in by a fence. Down home in the Rio Hondo our round-ups take a month and cover maybe three hundred square miles. We work with the other outfits, share the profits, take our cut. Any stock from out of our area is held until it’s spread’s rep. comes for it and we send men to collect ours.’

  ‘The fence blocks a cattle trail, Freda,’ Mark went on soberly. ‘Which makes it a whole lot worse. You didn’t see Texas right after the war. Not the way I saw it when I came through with Bushrod Sheldon on our way to join Maximillian. There were cattle every place a man looked and no market for them. Then we found a market up north and men started to move their herds up towards Kansas. It was the trail herd which saw this area opened up, the Indian moved on out. Men died on those early drives, more than do these days. They were learning the lessons we know now and a lot of times a man didn’t get a chance to profit from a mistake. A code grew up, gal. The code of the trail boss, the way he and his crew lived on the trail. One thing no trail boss will do is risk losing his herd and that’s what it’d mean to push ‘round here.’

  The girl watched Mark, surprised at the sincere and sober way he spoke. She began to get an inkling of the way the cowhands felt about that fence across the narrows of the Double K.

  ‘You know how Lindon got that Land Grant?’ Mark went on.

  ‘I’m not sure,’ she admitted.

  ‘On the agreement that he kept the trail open, never closed it down. That was why he got the narrows, it’s good winter graze and it lets the herd run through good food without being on his main grant land too long. Now the trail’s closed there can only be the one answer — war.’

  Would it come to that?’

  ‘Likely,’ Dusty answered. ‘Stone Hart’s coming north, be along most any day now. He’s a good man — and a damned good trail boss. He won’t waste time going all that way around when he’s got clear right to cross. So Wedge’ll fight, and if he can’t force through the men following him north’ll fight. Most of that fighting’ll be done over your land, not on the Double K. At the end, no matter who gets their way, no matter who wins, you small folks lose out.’

  ‘How do you mean?’

  ‘You make a living here, not much more. You need to sell your stock to make enough to carry you through,’ Dusty explained. ‘There’ll be none of that. And once the shooting starts you’ll be in the middle, stock’ll go, maybe folks be killed. You’ll be the ones who go under and that’s what I’m trying to prevent. That’s why I’m waiting for the Wedge to come.’

  ‘But would your friend allow that to happen?’

  ‘Stone makes his living running contract herds for small ranch owners like your pappy. He’ll have around three thousand head along with him, six or eight spreads shipping herds. Those folks are relying on Stone, just as y
ou are on selling your stock. He never yet let his folks down and I don’t figure he aims to make a start at it now.’

  ‘Won’t there be trouble when he comes anyway?’ she asked, watching Dusty’s face and wondering how she ever thought of him as being small.

  ‘Maybe,’ replied Dusty. ‘Maybe not. Only I’ve never yet seen the hired gun who would face real opposition and we’ll have that behind us with the Wedge. If we can get through, talk this out with Keller, or whatever you called him, we might show him how wrong he is.’

  ‘Never knowed a gal like you for asking questions,’ Mark drawled in a tone which warned her the subject must be dropped.

  ‘And I’d bet you’ve known some girls,’ she answered.

  ‘Couple here, couple there.’

  ‘When did you first get interested in girls, Mark?’

  He grinned at her. ‘The day I found out they wasn’t boys.’

  Once more the conversation took on a lighter note and continued that way until they came towards the town of Barlock, buckboard and horses making for the main street.

  Barlock was neither large nor impressive. Like most towns in Texas it existed to supply the needs of the cattle industry, growing, like the State itself, out of hide and horn, beef fattened on the rolling range land. The surrounding ranches supplied year-long custom for the cowhands had no closer place in which to spend their monthly pay roll. During the trail drive season added wealth could be garnered from passing herds, their crews taking a chance of a quick celebration before leaving Texas.

  All this did not mean that Barlock grew larger than any other weather-washed township out on the rolling plains. There were some fifteen business premises, two stores, two saloons, the inevitable Wells Fargo office with its telegraph wires and its barns and stables, a livery barn, a small house in back of town which showed its purpose with a small, discreet, red lantern. The rest were just like any other small town might offer, being neither more nor less grand.

  Mark and Dusty now rode at one side of the wagon and the girl was surprised to see how they no longer kept protectively close to it. They passed into town, going by a blacksmith’s forge, then the barber’s shop.

  ‘That’s the Land Office,’ she said, indicating the next single floor, small wooden building.

  ‘Saloon, ma’am,’ Dusty replied in a louder tone than necessary. Why thank you kindly for pointing it out.’

  On the porch before the Land Office lounged two tough-looking men with prominent guns and deputy marshal badges. They appeared to be loafing, yet clearly stood guard to prevent anybody entering and bothering whatever might be in the office. Neither spoke, nor did they move, but studied the passing party with cold, hard, unfriendly eyes.

  ‘Thanks for showing us the way in ma’am,’ Mark went on, also speaking in a far louder tone than necessary. ‘Let’s find us a drink, amigo.’

  ‘Been eating trail dust for so long I need one,’ Dusty replied, then in a lower voice, for they had passed the Land Agent’s office. ‘Where at’s the jail gal. Tell, don’t point.’

  Freda’s finger had started to make an instinctive point but she held it down and answered, ‘At the other end of town, beyond the Jackieboy Saloon.’

  ‘We’re going in this place here,’ Dusty said. Wait out here for us. What’s in that shop opposite?’

  ‘Dresses.’

  ‘Couldn’t be better. See you soon.’

  They swung their horses from her side and rode to the hitching rail outside the smaller of Barlock’s saloons. Freda swung her own horse towards the other side of the street and jumped down. She crossed to the window of the dress shop and stood looking in the window, admiring a dress which would cost more than she could possibly afford.

  Time dragged slowly. She wondered what might be keeping Dusty and Mark for there was no sign of either man. How soon would one of Elben’s deputies get suspicious and come to ask her why she waited before the saloon? For five minutes she pretended to be examining the horse’s hooves and the set of its harness, then leaned by the side of the wagon looking along the street.

  The tall shape of Mark Counter loomed at the batwing doors. Freda heaved a sigh of relief. Then her smile of welcome died on her face as she watched the way her two friends came into sight.

  For a moment Mark and Dusty stood on the sidewalk before the saloon. Then they started to walk towards the Land Agent’s office without showing a sign that either of them had ever seen her before. Their hats were thrust back and they went on unsteady legs in a manner she knew all too well. They seemed to have spent their time in the saloon gathering a fair quantity of liquid refreshment. In fact they both looked to be well on their way to rolling drunk.

  Hot and angry Freda stamped her way across the street on to the sidewalk behind them. She aimed to give them a piece of her mind when she caught up with them and to hell with the consequences. They had come into town to help her and the moment they hit the main street they took off for the saloon to become a pair of drunken irresponsible cowhands. She would never have expected it of either of them, yet the evidence stood plain before her eyes.

  ‘Yippee ti-yi-ki-yo!’ Dusty whooped, sounding real drunk. ‘Ain’t no Yankee can throw me.’

  ‘Le’s find another saloon ‘n’ likker up good,’ suggested Mark Counter, making a grab at the hitching rail on the end of the Land Agent’s office and holding it to get his balance, allowing Dusty to go ahead. ‘Another lil drink sure won’t do us any harm.’

  From his tone and attitude he already carried enough bottled brave-maker in him to settle him down. Freda came forward, her cheeks burned hot with both shame and rage. She saw the two deputies looking towards her friends and felt the anger grow even more. Dusty and Mark were headed for trouble, she hoped they got it.

  ‘They sure didn’t waste any time,’ said one deputy.

  ‘Never knowed a cowhand who did,’ replied the other. ‘Nor could handle his likker once he took it.’

  ‘That big feller looks like he might have money. Let’s tell them we’ll jail ‘em unless they pay out a fine.’

  ‘Sure. They’ll be easy enough.’

  Dusty Fog looked owlishly towards the two men who blocked the sidewalk ahead of him.

  ‘Ain’t no Yankee can throw me!’ he stated again, belligerently. ‘You pair’s headed for jail,’ answered the taller deputy. ‘Come on quiet, or we’ll take you with a broke head.’

  ‘Jail!’ yelped Dusty, fumbling in his pants pocket. ‘You can’t do that to us. I got money — look.’

  He held out a twenty dollar gold piece before the men. Two hands shot out greedily towards the gold coin, both deputies eager to get hold of it. By an accident it seemed Dusty let the gold piece fall from his fingers. It rang on the sidewalk and both deputies bent forward, reaching down to grab it.

  Dusty’s hands shot out fast, closed on the bending deputies’ shirt collars and heaved. They shot by on either side of him, caught off balance and taken unprepared by the strength in the small Texan’s body.

  Out of control, the two men went forward into Mark’s waiting hands which clamped on the outside of each head. Mark brought his hands together, crashing two heads into each other with a most satisfying thud. Both deputies went limp as if they’d been suddenly boned. They would have fallen to the ground only Mark gripped their collars again and held them up, leaning them against the office wall and jamming them there as if standing talking to them.

  Turning fast, hands ready to grab at the butts of his Colts, Dusty looked along the street. Nobody appeared to have seen them for the street remained empty except for the girl. A girl whose face seemed to be twisting into a variety of different expressions. Relief, amazement, anger, amusement, they all warred for prominence on Freda’s face.

  Then Dusty was grinning, not the slobbering leering grin of a drunk, but the grin she had seen before, when he talked with her before leaving for Barlok.

  ‘Lordy me, gal,’ he said, taking her arm and leading her to the Land Agent’s door.
‘I’ll never forget your face when we came out of that saloon.’

  CHAPTER FIVE

  MORAL SUASION

  BEFORE any of the thoughts buzzing around in Freda’s head could be put to words, before she had hardly time to collect her thoughts even, she saw Dusty Fog open the door of the Land Agent’s office. Freda suddenly realized the reason for the piece of play-acting. By pretending to be drunk and incapable Dusty and Mark put the watching deputies off guard and enabled the two Texans to handle the matter without fuss or disturbance. Wondering what would come next Freda followed Dusty through the open office door, into the hallowed and protected halls of Karl Mallick, Land Agent.

  The office was designed for privacy, so that the occupants could talk their business undisturbed. There was but one large room, Mallick living in Barlock’s best, in fact only, hotel. All the windows had been painted black for the lower half of their length and could only have been looked through by a person standing on tiptoes and peering over the black portion. The two deputies on watch outside whenever the office was in use prevented such liberties being taken.

  It was a room without fancy furnishings. Nothing more or less than a set of filing cabinets in a corner, a stout safe in another, a few chairs, a range saddle with rifle and rope in a third. In the centre of the room stood a large desk and at the desk, head bent forward as he wrote rapidly on a sheet of paper, sat Karl Mallick, Land Agent and attorney for the Double K.

  Mallick had much on his mind as he wrote a letter. He set down the pen and began toying with the branding iron which lay on his desk top. He heard the door open and scowled. Only one man in town should be able to enter without knocking and he would be hardly likely to come around in plain daylight, not to the front door, unless something had gone bad wrong in their plans.

  Raising his head, so his black bearded face looked towards the door, Mallick found he had visitors.

  ‘What the—!’ he began, coming to his feet as he stared at the small man and the girl who entered.