Shadow on the Trail Page 7

  Wade heartily availed himself of the invitation. It was camp fare but wholesome, with a plentiful abundance of fresh beef. Wade ate until he could hold no more. Then, rising he thanked his host and complimented the cook. The men appeared disposed to be friendly, except a blank-faced Texan who watched Wade with suspicion. Wade got back in the shadow away from those searching eyes and removed his heavily-loaded vest to put on his shirt, not yet wholly dry. If these men sensed he had money, even a small sum, they would not scruple to shoot him for it. Wade felt glad to button up that leather vest.

  “What about my horse, boss?” he asked of the leader.

  “You’re welcome to a nose bag of grain. An’ there’s some open patches around where yore hoss can pick a little grass.”

  That solved the problem for his animal. Wade whistled at his task while covertly he watched these men. At once he figured them to be a band of rustlers, sinisterly bent upon those cattle tracks in the road. Wade found a little open place up the creek where some grass grew, and here he led his horse and tethered him upon it. Darkness had set in now. And he contrived to carry his saddle and pack to the same place.

  Upon his return to the campfire, his footsteps made no sound on the soft road, so he heard conversation not meant for his ears.

  “Wal, even if he had anythin’ on him, I shore wouldn’t try to snitch it—not off a man who packs a gun like him. This fellar’s a gunman, Nippert, take thet from me. One of thet wild Texas breed.”

  Nippert’s reply was growled too low for the delaying Wade to distinguish.

  “Another thing, Nip. If he’s on the dodge he might fall in with our plans. An’ believe me, with thet outfit of tough riders Aulsbrook won’t be easy to relieve of cattle.”

  “Catlin, I know this cattle trail,” replied Nippert. “At Hone-haid Crossin’ we can waylay thet bunch an’ never get a scratch.”

  “You told me thet before. But the Pecos is a hell of a long way off. An’ if we do get the herd there we’ll hev to sell in New Mexico. An’ I don’t know thet country.”

  “Jesse Chisum will buy every haid of stock an’ ask no questions.”

  “Humph! Is thet jingle-bob cattle king open to trade?”

  “He shore is. I happen to know.”

  A low hist from another member of the gang warned the two rustlers of Wade’s approach. When he arrived at the campfire Catlin offered his tobacco pouch.

  “Roll one an’ hev a seat, stranger,” he invited in rough cordiality.

  “Gosh, when have I had a smoke!” ejaculated Wade.

  “Keep the bag. I got plenty more. . . . An’ what’d you say yore name was?”

  “I didn’t say,” replied Wade, genially, as he rolled the cigarette.

  “Thet’s so. You wasn’t turrible sociable.”

  “Well, the fact is, my true name makes Texans—especially rangers—a little too interested in me, so I usually go by Jim Crow, or Sam Smith or some handle like that.”

  “Ahuh. I see. Much obliged. I ain’t one damn bit curious about thet. . . . But whar you goin’?”

  “I haven’t any idea, except out of Texas,” replied Wade, frankly.

  “Friend, you got a hell of a ways to go yet, by road.”

  “How far to the Pecos?”

  “Nip, how far to Horsehaid Crossin’?”

  “For cattle thet depends on the grazin’. This spring it’s good, once out of this thicket. I’d say twenty days, barrin’ any holdup by Comanches or sich. Haw! Haw!”

  “Twenty days for cattle,” mused Wade, as if impressed.

  “Wal, friend, thet means twenty days or thereabouts for us,” drawled Catlin, blandly. “How about trailin’ along with us? Plenty of grub an’ good company.”

  “Thanks. Does that entail any obligation?” rejoined Wade.

  “Not a damn thing. Take it or leave it. I like yore looks, if you’re on the dodge.”

  “Straight talk. I appreciate it. But your men might not be so— so kind.”

  “I shore got an oncivil outfit,” declared Catlin with a guffaw. “But I’m not apologizin’ for them. Onct they know a fellar, they open up.”

  “I’ll sleep on your offer,” replied Wade, thoughtfully. “Twenty days to get west of the Pecos! That sticks in my craw.”

  “Stranger,” interposed Nippert with animation, “you can make the Pecos in two days, across country, follerin’ this creek.”

  “Through that thorn thicket?”

  “Shore. It’s tough. But you could get through without bein’ lost. You could swim your hoss acrost the river an’ find a trail up to Eagle’s Nest. Thar’s no law there. Only greasers an’ hard nuts! Haw! Haw!”

  “Excuse me. I’ll take my chance on the road,” replied Wade and turned again to the leader. “Say, would I seem to give offense if I voice a thought—that your twenty days to Horsehead Crossing must have some bearing on the cattle herd which passed along here recently?”

  “No offense, stranger, an’ it do hev a bearin’.”

  “Much obliged. I feel in more congenial company. It might be good for me to change my lone-wolf ways. But listen, man. I feel bound to tell you that if I threw in with you it’d increase the probability of your dying with your boots on.”

  “Haw! Haw! Haw! Well spoke, my young fellar!” ejaculated the rustler, won by the subtle remark. “Let me tell you—neither you nor Wess Hardin, nor even Simm Bell hisself could increase thet probability for Bill Catlin.”

  “All right. I’ll think it over,” ended Wade, abruptly stung and alienated by the allusion to his father. He bade them good night and strode away in the darkness. No doubt Simm Bell’s ill fame had penetrated to the remote camps of Texas. All the more reason for Wade to leave Texas forever! Once he glanced back to see the dark faces of the rustlers lighted by the ruddy firelight. What a real western scene! Wade read it as clearly as if it had been a printed page.

  He made his way carefully and searchingly to where he had left his horse and saddle. The glade was starlit and out of sight of the rustlers. Wade searched for another outlet to the road, and the moment when he discovered it made up his mind to leave there in the night.

  With that in view, and his mind set on awakening early, he made his bed and went to sleep. When he woke up he knew he had slept long. Still the hour had not reached dawn. He had rested and so had his horse. Noiselessly saddling and bridling the animal, Wade led him out to the road and along it for a goodly distance before mounting. Once in the saddle, he walked the horse until there was no longer any danger of the rustlers hearing hoof beats, then he urged him to a lope.

  Daybreak accorded Wade the welcome fact that he was out of the brush. He recognized that this dense growth had been a league-wide belt running down a draw which he had traversed endwise. There was grass again, and rolling sage country, growing to rocky breaks in the west, and climbing to the gray plateau in the east. The road headed almost due north. Wade rejoiced that he was on it, not many miles from the famous river beyond which he would be safe.

  It would be sunrise before the rustlers discovered his departure. And they would be at some pains to try to figure it out. Catlin would lay it to the lone-wolf proclivities he had chosen to give Wade. Nippert would rage at the loss of a chance to rob someone upon whom he had smelled money. And he would suspect the very thing Wade meant to do, which was to acquaint the cattleman Aulsbrook with his peril. Still, Wade reflected, those rustlers did not know he had heard of their plan to ambush the cattleman at Horsehead Crossing.

  Wade rode on, loping and trotting by turns. Daylight came with a redness in the east. It tinged the rolling land of rock and sage and grassy plain. Again Wade saw the outlines of pale bluffs, not so vague and ghostlike this morning. Down that endless range ran the Pecos, a stone-walled river, he had heard, fordable only at long distances, a rendezvous for outlaws, like the Rim Rock of the Rio Grande.

  From a ridge top Wade sighted cattle grazing on a plain close to the road. Blue smoke marked the location of the camp of the cattlem
en not five miles ahead. Wade urged his horse into a lope. Presently he made out riders coming in from the herd. When at length Wade reined in his horse at the camp he saw five men at their morning meal. A stalwart Texan of middle age, bronze-faced and sandy-haired, like so many Texans, rose to take in Wade with gray eagle eyes.

  “Mawnin’,” he said.

  “Howdy,” returned Wade, as he glanced from the cattleman to the others. They were lean rangy riders, young in years, like most of the cattle trail-drivers.

  “What’s yore hurry?” queried the tall Texan.

  “Reckon I wanted to catch up with you.”

  “Air you alone?” And the eagle gaze shifted from Wade down the yellow road to where it disappeared over a ridge.

  “Yes.”

  “An’ what was your hurry to ketch up with me?”

  “You’re being trailed by an outfit of rustlers. Nippert and Catlin with four others whose names I didn’t get.”

  “Wal, you needn’t. Catlin is enough. . . . Suppose you get down an’ come in. We’re just havin’ breakfast.”

  Wade sat down with them, aware of covert scrutiny.

  “I’m taking you to be Aulsbrook,” said Wade, presently.

  “Thet’s me. An’ your name?”

  “I’m not telling my right name. So you can call me what you like.”

  “Wal, eat yore breakfast.”

  Wade consumed more food and drink than minutes at this task. Then he made haste to explain: “I’m from over Blanco way. Got lost in that brush thicket. Last night I had the luck to break out in the road an’ run plumb into a camp of six men. I knew their kind and I lost no time telling them I was on the dodge. That eased things. They made me welcome. After supper I overheard Nippert and Catlin talking. Nippert wanted to rob me—I reckon, kill me first. But Catlin didn’t like the idea. He took me for a gunman and said I might help in the job at hand. Nippert knew the country. His plan is to let you drive in to Horsehead Crossing, ambush you there and make way with your herd. . . . I never let on I’d heard. But when Catlin felt me out I said I’d think it over. This morning before daylight I saddled and hit your trail.”

  The Texan scratched his stubby chin a moment, his gray eyes narrowing.

  “Stranger, when I seen you comin’ I reckoned you belonged to Catlin’s outfit,” he drawled. “So I’m askin’ yore pardon an’ thankin’ you for the hunch.”

  “Boss, how do you know this heah hombre aint lyin’?” queried the foremost of the tall riders.

  “Wal, Bert, there’s times when you have to take a man for what he says he is,” rejoined the cattleman, thoughtfully. “But I’m willin’ to listen to you.”

  “I ain’t got much to say. I was only thinkin’. This stranger has an eye an’ he talks straight. Besides, if he was in thet outfit, he’d hardly be likely to give way Nippert’s plan of waylayin’ us at Hawsehaid.”

  “Exactly. An’ see heah, Bert. Mebbee some of this herd raidin’ at Hawsehaid thet’s been laid on the Comanches is the work of rustlers.”

  “Thet occurred to me, boss.”

  “Wal, Blanco—not knowin’ your name I’ll call you Blanco—air you ridin’ on or trail-drivin’ with me?”

  “Is that an invite to clear out or join you?”

  “You can take it either way. It’s what you want to do.”

  “I reckon I’d like to help you if I could. God knows it’s time I was turning my hand to something,” said Wade with a suggestion of bitterness. “Besides I’d like to throw a gun on Nippert.”

  “Gun throwin’ yore line?”

  “I’m afraid it’s all I’m good at.”

  “Wal, on this trail it’s a damn good thing, an’ don’t you forget thet. How about a rifle?”

  “Still better. I can hit anything with a rifle,” replied Wade, with a smile at his modesty.

  “Sam, get thet saddle sheath an’ forty-four in the wagon,” ordered Aulsbrook. “I’m a pore shot with a long gun. An’ none of my boys air extra good.”

  “Then you take my word?” asked Wade feelingly. He was finding that his distrust of men might have been occasioned by his profession.

  “I do, shore. How about you, Bert?”

  “Boss, if I had to decide it myself I reckon I’d take him.”

  “Boys, any kick comin’?” queried Aulsbrook to the others.

  “Nary a kick. We’re daid lucky,” replied one, heartily.

  Sam returned with the saddle sheath, Winchester and shells which he turned over to Wade.

  “Boys, I reckon Blanco lightin’ out on them rustlers last night will change their plans,” remarked Aulsbrook after some pondering. “They may not expect to find Blanco with us. But they shore know we know they’re trailin’ us. An’ thet might make the suspense too much for them. What would be the sense of their waitin’ to waylay us at Hawsehaid when they know they cain’t surprise us?”

  “No sense atall, boss,” replied the cowboy Bert. “They’ll foller along an’ try raidin’ us some night.”

  “Thet’d be Catlin. But Nippert is whole hawg or none. He’s the brains of thet outfit, if not the boss. . . . What do you think, Blanco?”

  “I’m not a cattleman. And these are the first rustlers I ever had to deal with. I’d say they’re stuck.”

  “Fine—to say thet!” exclaimed Aulsbrook. “But what gives you the hunch?”

  “It’s not a hunch. I know.”

  Aulsbrook did not press the question. But his clearing brow was expressive.

  “Sam, an’ you Jim, clean up an’ pack,” he ordered. “Bert, you an’ Blanco wrangle the hawses. Nick, you fetch in the team an’ help me harness. Pronto now.”

  In less than an hour the herd was on the move. Wade sat on the wagon seat with Aulsbrook who drove in the rear. Wade’s horse, minus his saddle, had an easy time with the rest of the remuda, grazing along with the cattle. The four cowboys rode, one on each side of the herd and two behind. They lolled in their saddles and smoked. Trail-driving was leisurely work.

  “I like this,” said Wade. “Poking along as if there wasn’t such a thing as time. How many miles a day?”

  “Wal, about ten, I reckon. Depends on the grass. We’ll beat thet this trip. Never seen it so green.”

  “Where are you bound for?”

  “Colorado. I can sell for twenty dollars a haid there.”

  “Whew! And how many head in this herd?”

  “About two thousand. All longhorns. I might sell to Chisum, if he offers a good price.”

  “Chisum. . . . Jesse Chisum, the jingle-bob cattle king?”

  “Thet’s the man.”

  “What does jingle-bob mean?”

  “Haw! Haw! You air a tenderfoot. Chisum slits the ears of his yearlin’s so a piece hangs down, bobs up an’ down. It’s a brand no other cattleman ever copied.”

  “Nippert told Catlin that Chisum would buy this herd without asking questions.”

  “I daresay he would, the old reprobate. Chisum runs a dozen outfits an’ when I was at Seven Rivers last he had a hundred thousand haid on the range. He moves cattle fast.”

  “Would you call that honest?”

  “Wal, on the face of it, thet’s the way cattlemen do if they air big an’ rich enough to risk it. Chisum may not ask questions, but he knows cattle thet have been rustled. He knows somebody else will, particularly the beef buyers for the forts an’ Indian reservations, an’ he thinks he might as well underbid them. Nine times out of ten the cattle he buys air gone before the right owner turns up, which west of the Pecos he seldom does. I might never have turned up but for you, young fellar.”

  “But doesn’t that encourage cattle stealing?”

  “It shore does. An’ the rustlin’ of cattle these days is about as big as the honest cattle business. This is the heydey of the rustler. Why, the Lincoln County War is on right now.”

  “Excuse my ignorance of the West,” said Wade, laughing. “What is the Lincoln County War?”

  “War between cattlemen ove
r heah in New Mexico. Both sides air wrong. An’ there’ll be a heap of blood-spillin’ before it’s over.”

  “Looks like I’ve headed for interesting times,” mused Wade.

  “Take my advice an’ keep right on ridin’! New Mexico is wuss than Texas ever was. All the bad men thet the rangers have run out of the Big Bend an’ the Panhandle have turned up in New Mexico.”

  That last bit of information cured Wade of any further desire for more at the moment. He watched the herd and the drivers and ever and anon looked back along the road. Aulsbrook did that also, perhaps not so often as Wade with whom the act had become habitual. The leisurely mode of travel, however, did not keep the hours from passing. When the riders bunched the herd on a grassy plain, Wade guessed that it was time for the midday rest. Aulsbrook drove on to meet his riders where some trees offered a bit of shade.

  “Wal, boss, I reckon it might as wal be heah as anywhere,” drawled Bert, with a glint in his eye.

  “What might?” retorted Aulsbrook.

  “Our little set-to with Catlin. He’s comin’.”

  Aulsbrook strode out from behind the wagon to crane his neck and gaze back along the road they had traversed.

  “Wal, I don’t see any hawses.”

  “Boss, you’re not lookin’ right. . . . Over there, off the road.”

  Across the grassy plain Wade sighted a dark group of horsemen and as many pack animals; and he was not only startled but chagrined to find how vain had been his vigilance.

  “By Gawd, there they air!” declared Aulsbrook. “Wal, what do you make of thet?”

  “They cut across where the road bends.”

  “Haidin’ fer us now.”

  The cattleman cursed under his breath.

  “Bold move for rustlers. I don’t like it. Catlin knows we’re short of hands. Lay out the rifles convenient an’ look to yore guns. They shore cain’t bluff us.”

  CHAPTER SIX

  WADE pondered an unfamiliar reaction for him—that of resentment and animosity which had nothing whatever to do with Simm Bell and the aftermath of one of his raids. This not unexpected move of the rustlers had resulted from a contact of his own. Left to make his own decisions, his very first fight after his escape from the rangers had to do with right and justice. It struck him deeply and when he realized that significance he felt an elation which mounted with his anger.