“Yes, he is, but he is in Washington right now and won’t be back until the fifth of next month,” the man answered. “In the meantime, I am authorized to accept delivery of the cattle, and to give you a receipt which will be redeemed by Mr. Abernathy for the appropriate amount. I’m Cephus Malone. Do you have cattle?”
“Yes,” Williams said.
Malone smiled. “Ahh, then you must be Mr. Kirby Jensen. Well, Mr. Jensen, I must confess that you got here much sooner than I thought you would. You have three thousand head for me, I believe?”
Williams didn’t know anything about Kirby Jensen or his cattle, but for the time being it he thought it might be a good idea to go along with Malone’s belief that he was Jensen.
“Yes, three thousand head.”
“Good, good. As soon as I make an inventory of the cattle, I can issue a government draft for the funds. Where are the cattle? Just outside of town?”
“Uh, no, the herd isn’t here yet.”
“Well, I can understand,” Malone said. “It’s a long way up here from Big Rock, Colorado. But the sooner you can get them here, the better.”
“Yes, well, I just wanted to check and see if you still wanted to purchase the cattle.”
“Mind you, in order to secure the purchase you must be the first one to deliver the cattle,” Malone said. “And I must warn you, you are not the only one in the picture. A man named Trent Williams has also contacted us for possible delivery.”
“Yes, I understand,” Williams replied. “I’ll rejoin the herd and bring them up as fast as I can.”
As Williams left Malone’s office, his mind was racing with possibilities. If he could deliver over three thousand head, that would be over one hundred thousand dollars. All he had to do was get control of the three thousand head of cattle that a man named Kirby Jensen was bringing up from Colorado.
The way Williams saw it, there were two problems to contend with.
Problem number one was to find the herd.
Well, that shouldn’t be too difficult. After all, given the mountains, passes, and rivers, how many ways up from Big Rock, Colorado, were there?
Problem number two would be to take the herd once he found it.
That shouldn’t be too difficult either. With three thousand head, he could afford to hire a band of men to do the job for him and still have more money than he would have had had he been able to take Jason Adams’s herd.
He could afford such a band of men, and he knew just where to find them.
Before going to bed that night, Trent Williams sent a telegram back to Salcedo. The recipient of the telegram was a man name Will Staley. Staley was the former sheriff, but had been defeated in the last election because of accusations that he had been in cahoots with a cattle rustler.
Staley denied the accusations, but was defeated anyway. Now he operated a private cattle protective agency going after rustlers. Although he was no longer a sheriff, and no longer had territorial authority to make arrests, he compensated for that by declaring himself a bounty hunter, and indeed, he did collect bounty on those who were wanted. But his primary income came from the cattlemen who hired him. There were those who said that Staley didn’t always let the law get in the way of getting the job done, especially if there was enough money involved.
Williams was sure that he could offer Staley enough money to get the job done. But he could pay only if Staley succeeded in getting a herd for him. And the herd Malone had mentioned, the one belonging to a man named Kirby Jensen, would be that herd.
Chapter Seventeen
It had been five days since they came through the snow and were again on dry ground. In fact, as far as Andy was concerned, it was too dry. The reason for that was that he was riding drag and eating the dust kicked up by the herd.
It was because he was riding drag that he was the first to see the Indians. He wasn’t sure he actually saw them because it was only a slight movement, a shadow within a shadow that caught his eye. He dismounted and pretended to be working on his saddle while actually looking behind him.
There! He saw it again, and this time there was no question. Three Indians, riding in line, moved through a cut in the ridge. They were bending low over their horses, obviously trying to remain unseen.
Andy remounted, then rode, not at a gallop but at a quick pace, until he caught up with Smoke.
“Smoke, there’s some Indians on our tail,” he said.
“How many?”
“I don’t know,” Andy said. “But they are trying their damn’dest to stay out of sight, so I know that they are up to no good.”
Smoke stroked his chin and looked out over the herd. “Andy, do you think you can get to the other side of the herd without letting the Indians know that you are on to them?”
“Yeah,” Andy said. “I think so.”
“All right, you get over there, tell Billy, Mike, and the Butrum boys that, at my signal, I want them to get the herd moving as fast as we can. The river’s not more than a mile ahead and Sally is already set up there. If we can get the herd across, we’ll make our stand there.”
“Right,” Andy said as he started around the herd.
“Pearlie!” Smoke called.
