Talon & Chantry 07 - North To The Rails (v5.0) (8 page)

Men had leaped to the saddle and were plunging after the stampeding cattle, which were frightened by the sudden shot.

Chantry waited a moment for Koch to get up, but thoroughly angry now, he walked up to him and struck him twice in the face before Koch could lift his hands, hit him in the belly, and then when he started to fall forward, brought a hammer blow down on his kidneys.

“You’re fired, Koch,” he said. “Get your outfit and get out. I don’t ever want to see you around again…anywhere.” Chantry picked up his rifle and walked to his horse.

He rode out, swept wide, and began gathering cattle, pushing them toward the center. He gathered about twenty head, and then came upon a bunch that had slowed to a walk, and started them all back. Hay Gent joined him with a dozen head.

“What happened back there?” Gent asked.

“With Koch? I whipped him again, and then I fired him.”

“What if he won’t stay fired?”

“He will.”

“But if he don’t?”

“Then I’ll whip him again, and again, until he stays fired.”

Gent made no comment, and they drove the cattle in, meeting McKay, Helvie, and Rugger also bringing in cattle. It was the work of hours, but slowly the cattle were all gathered.

“We’ll move on,” French said. “Maybe there’s water up ahead.” He looked around. “Where’s Koch?”

They were all listening. “I fired him,” Chantry replied. “That shot started the stampede. This is no place to be settling personal grudges.”

Williams looked at him thoughtfully. “We’ll be shorthanded,” he said. And he added, “He’ll carry a grudge. Likely he’ll lay for you.”

“He’ll have company then,” Chantry said.

“What’s that mean?” Williams asked quickly.

“Men leave tracks, French. I’m not so much a tenderfoot that I can’t read sign.”

They were all looking at him, but he left it at that, and the cattle started to move.

Riding out from the herd, he found a promontory and rode cautiously up the side to look over the ridge and survey the country. A few miles ahead and off to the right of the trail there was a hollow with a touch of deeper green.

Half an hour later he came up to it, a wide slough boggy along the sides, but with water a-plenty. Skirting it, he found it had a gravelly shore, and turned back to guide the herd.

“Water?” French was skeptical. “I don’t know of any water around here.”

“You do now,” Chantry said. “Hay, turn the herd.”

Hay Gent glanced at Williams, who merely shrugged, so the herd swung. By the time the cattle had watered and a few head had been snaked out of the mud it was coming on to sundown, and over by the chuck wagon there was a fire going.

There was little talk around the fire. The men were dog-tired, and when they had eaten they hunted their bedrolls. French alone loitered at the fire, smoking. From time to time he glanced across at Tom Chantry.

“You are a difficult man, my friend,” he said at last. “Whatever else you may be, you are not a coward.”

“Thanks.”

“I will win, however. It’s a long way to Dodge.”

“It is that.” Chantry looked up from his coffee. “And when you get there, I’ll be with you.”

French’s gaze hardened, then he laughed. “You might be at that,” he replied cheerfully, “and if you are, I’ll give you credit for it.”

“You’ll need the credit,” Chantry replied. “I’ll have the cash.”

He got a plate and his food, and sat down a bit away from the fire. If they didn’t accept him, the hell with them—he could go his own way. But there was something in him that was different now; he had grown harder, tougher. The wide plains and the long winds of morning were having their effect; but French Williams the Talrim boys, and Koch had contributed…yes, and Sparrow back there at Las Vegas, and Bone McCarthy at Clifton’s. These men had experienced far more living in the West than he had. Perhaps, he thought reluctantly, perhaps his thinking needed a bit of revision.

How much of what he believed about not using guns was left over from that bitter day when they brought his father home on a shutter? Or was it what his mother had taught him? Deep in grief over the death of his father, she had shrunk from the possibility of such an end for her son.

Killing was wrong—on that score he could not change. However, there was no law here except the law enforced by men with guns, and did such men as the Talrims, and even such men as Williams himself, understand any other law?

If a man would not put restrictions upon himself, if he would not conform to the necessary limits that allow people to live together in peace, then he must not be allowed to infringe on the liberties of those who wanted to live in peace. And that might lead to violence, even to killing.

The trouble was that back east men had lived so long in a society that demanded order and conformity that they failed to understand that there were societies where violence was the rule, and where there were men to whom only the fear of retribution placed a bridle on their license.

But Tom Chantry knew there was more than his father behind him, for the fighting tradition of the Chantrys did not begin with him, nor with his grandfather, who had stood with LaFitte and Jackson at the battle of New Orleans. There were generations before that, who had crossed over from Ireland.

The principal thing he had learned was that simply because he himself did not believe in violence was no reason that others would feel the same. In the future he must be more wary. But what if the Talrim boys’ presence was not coincidence? What if French
had
arranged for them to be near? What if French intended the Talrim boys to eliminate him?

At daybreak he was out riding the drag, and when he broke off he caught up another horse from the remuda. This was a
grulla
mustang, small but wiry.

“Watch him,
amigo,
” Dutch Akin whispered. “That one is mean.”

The little mouse-colored horse stood quiet until saddled, but just as Chantry put his foot in the stirrup and rested his weight on it to swing to the saddle, the little horse folded up like a closing knife and then snapped open viciously. Tom Chantry slapped into the saddle as the horse came down, was almost thrown as it sun-fished wickedly, then crow-hopped for half a dozen jumps, and switched ends suddenly. More by luck than anything else, Tom stayed in the saddle. He had ridden spirited horses, but nothing that bucked like this. Just as he was sure he was going to have to grab for the pommel with both hands, the
grulla
stopped bucking, ran a few steps, and settled down.

Chantry rode over to the chuck wagon and, taking his rifle, shoved it into the saddle scabbard. Then he turned and rode out on the plains.

He had not ridden more than half a mile when he saw a rider emerge from a draw just ahead and stand waiting. It was Bone McCarthy.

“Howdy, boss. You huntin’ comp’ny?”

“Why not?”

“I ain’t been up to you sooner because I figured you knew about them. I mean I saw your tracks back yonder.”

“The Talrims? Yes, I saw them.”

“I can’t decide what they’re after. They’re traveling too slow unless they’ve got somethin’ on their minds. Whatever it is concerns you or that herd. Every now and then they crest a ridge to study you.”

Chantry had his own ideas about the reason for their presence. Somehow, he felt, French Williams had gotten word to them, and they were lying in wait for their chance to kill him. He might be mistaken, but there was the presence of Dutch Akin as an indication that Williams thought along such lines.

“They’ve dogged your trail a couple of times. I’d ride careful, if I was you.”

“Any sign of Sun Chief?”

“Not hide nor hair.” McCarthy dug into his saddlebag for a strip of jerky and began chewing on it. “Chantry, you’re ahead of your time in this country—I mean, you not wantin’ to carry a gun. This ain’t the kind of world you came from, and it won’t be for a few years. Whenever a man enters a new country like this his way of livin’ drops back hundreds of years. You ain’t livin’ in the nineteenth century here, Chantry.”

“You don’t talk much like a cowhand.”

“That’s nonsense. Whoever said a cowhand was any special breed? Cowhands, like freighters, bankers, and newspaper editors, are apt to come from anywhere. They just like the life..as I do.”

Chantry glanced at him. “Where did you come from, McCarthy?”

“Ireland…where else? Twelve years ago I left there, but at the end of the War Between the States I went back for a few weeks, and got into trouble again.”

“Again?”

“The first time I was visiting a friend in Glenveagh and there was trouble over an eviction…I had to leave the country. I joined up with the French, as many a good Irish lad has done over the years, and after a bit I migrated to this country. I had two years in the war, then back there, and straight away I got into the Fenian troubles and was lucky to get out with a whole skin. Back here again, and two years fightin’ Indians with the Fifth Cavalry.”

“The McCarthys are an old family, I’ve heard.”

“Yes, some say we’re the oldest family in Ireland. We owned Blarney Castle at one time.”

“How does it happen that sometimes you talk as if you’d been born in the West.”

McCarthy shrugged. “Saves questions. A good many men do it, you’ll find. They just fall into the habit as I have, of talkin’ the western way. You put on a way of talkin’ when you change your clothes. It’s as simple as that.”

They rode on, scouting the country. “By the way,” Bone McCarthy said, “back there at Clifton’s the day I met you there was a girl there.”

“I saw her.”

“Well, she saw you. And she’s been askin’ questions. Aside from the fact that you’re a handsome, upstanding man, why would she be so all-fired curious?”

“I don’t know. She was a pretty girl, I remember that.”

“I remember it too, but I’ve got an idea neither of us should. I’ve got a nose for trouble.”

“She was asking questions?”

“She was. She was askin’ the wrong questions, too. I mean, not questions a girl would ask who was interested in a man…but questions of somebody who wanted to know where you was goin’, what route you’d be likely to take, and how many hands you had workin’ for you.”

“It doesn’t make sense,” Chantry commented.

“It did to her,” McCarthy said dryly.

Chapter 9

T
HE GIRL DID not concern him. She would not be the first curious person he had encountered, and women had a way of asking questions about strange young men who are, or seem to be, unattached…and vice versa. Tom Chantry was more concerned with the Talrims and with worrying over when Sun Chief would reappear.

The cattle had moved slowly. Water holes were scarce, and it seemed they came to them early in the afternoon when French Williams invariably suggested it would be risky to drive on and make a dry camp. Twice at least his claims had undoubtedly been correct, for they were followed by long, dry drives.

On the drive itself all went well. The cattle were well broken to the trail, there was no friction among the riders, and nobody was troubling Chantry. His two victories over Koch seemed to have settled the matter of how much nerve he had, and the stampede caused by Koch had meant much additional work for them; they wanted no repeat performance.

Hard though the work might be, it had settled into routine, and this, Tom Chantry knew, increased his danger. Routine had a lulling effect upon the senses, and he knew his security demanded that he be alert at any moment for whatever might come.

Despite his impatience, he had to recognize that the short drives were having their effect on the cattle. Settled down after their stampede, the short days offered more time for grazing and they had gained weight. If nothing happened to change their present rate of progress and if the grazing continued to be good, the herd would arrive at market in excellent condition.

Was this what Williams was thinking of? Or was it something else? Why was he moving so slowly? Was he, too, waiting for word from the railroad?

There was no sign of Sun Chief.

Bone McCarthy was close by, and several times, riding out from the herd, Chantry came upon his tracks, as well as those of the Talrims, who seemed to have been joined by a third person. The new set of tracks were those of a smaller, shod horse.

Trinidad was not far ahead, and although it was only a small settlement it had already acquired a reputation as a tough place. In 1859 Gabriel Gutierrez and his nephew had come up from New Mexico with a herd of sheep. The men built a cabin on the south bank of the river and settled down there, grazing their sheep, hunting and farming a few acres of land. Others moved in, and the settlement was named for the daughter of Trinidad Baca, one of the first-comers.

Was French Williams waiting for something to happen at Trinidad? Chantry told himself he was imagining things.

“I got to hand it to you,” Williams said one night as they sat by the fire. “You’ve done your share. You’ve stood up to the work better than I figured you would. You’ve changed, too. These last days you’ve honed down and sharpened up considerably.”

“Thanks. You’ve done your job, too.”

Williams chuckled. “But we still haven’t reached Dodge and the railroad.”

“Call it off if you want to,” Chantry replied carelessly. “I’ll pay you the going price for your herd on delivery at Dodge.”

“You quitting on me? Trying to welch on your deal?”

“You know better than that. Just trying to let you make a dollar. Don’t worry, French. When we deliver these cattle, I’ll be there to collect.”

“You got any idea what’s ahead?” Williams studied him, his amusement apparent. “The Kiowas are out, and believe me, nobody is worse. They’ll give us bloody hell.”

“And there’s been no rain, so we’ll have water trouble. And there are rustlers. You’ve told me all that.” Chantry leveled his eyes at Williams. “And don’t pull another Dutch Akin on me. I won’t stand for it.”

“What will you do?”

Chantry knew the hands around the fire were listening, but he did not care. “If anybody shows up hunting me, French, I’ll figure he was sent by you.”