Dove nodded and grinned, and Dunc rode on out of sight along the narrow hill trail. Now he could see the cave, and the big iron wash kettle simmering with venison stew near the entrance, and the half-dozen horses grazing along the steep slope. Four men drifted out of the cave's dark interior, exchanged greetings with Dunc, and received news of their families.
The few men at the cave were Brunner regulars. Most of them had got in trouble with lowland law—mostly over property rights with the Indians—and the cave was a handy place to hide out in. A good many of these men had lost the land they had settled when the Nation had been cut up into personal allotments. These were the bitter men, and it was no good explaining to them that the land had never been theirs legally; all they knew was that they had been robbed of land that they had cleared and worked and claimed as their own.
As Dunc swung down from the saddle, Ike Brunner and his younger brother, Cal, came out of the cave.
“How was it down south?” Ike asked.
“All right,” Dunc said. “Abel Westrum cut his foot with an ax last week and can't ride. Bus Finnley is down with the slow fever. All the others'll be here this time tomorrow.”
“Wes Longstreet got in yesterday, from the north,” Cal Brunner said. He looked at his brother. “Maybe we better make out a list of the ones we can count on.”
Dunc and the two brothers hunkered down by the cave's entrance. Ike took up a stick, smoothed a place on the ground, and scratched the names down as Dunc called them out.
Ike, the older of the two Brunners, was a tall, long-faced man in his late thirties. If he had ever smiled, Dunc Lester had not seen it. Dunc guessed that Ike Brunner was the smartest man he'd ever seen, and without Ike the gang would be nothing. Still, not many of the boys liked him. He was unfeeling, cold, and deadly.
Cal Brunner was several years younger than his brother. Where Ike was feared, Cal was liked. A brash, good- looking kid, Cal Brunner was as quick to laugh as he was to fight; he loved corn liquor and country dances and girls. But he took orders from his brother like everybody else.
To some, Dunc guessed, this would seem like a pretty strange situation: thirty to fifty fiercely independent hill boys taking orders from a man they didn't like. That was because outsiders could not understand what debts these people owed Ike Brunner. Dunc thought of Dove Wakeley. When Dove's woman was down with scarlet fever and seemed sure to die, Ike Brunner hauled a doctor all the way from Talequah, kicking and yelling blue murder. And Ike put his pistol to the doctor's head and told him by God if he let the woman die he'd blow his brains right through the roof.
Dove's woman got well. Some people said it was an act of God, but Wakeley figured Ike Brunner had had a hand in it too, and he had been one of the regulars ever since. And there was Gabe Tanis. Gabe's cabin and sheds had burned to the ground one night. Everything he owned went up in fire and smoke. Of course the neighbors pitched in and helped rebuild, but only Ike Brunner would have thought of bringing him a new team of work mules. Where the mules had come from Gabe didn't know, and he cared less; he just knew that he had the best team in the hills, thanks to Ike Brunner.
Dunc himself was deeply in debt to Ike. During the big dry-up two years ago, the home place hadn't grown enough to half feed the big Lester family. Ike had brought shelled corn and flour to see them through the winter and early spring. When Dunc heard later that the Brunners were in trouble with the lowland law, he was among the first to help out.
Ike was a tough one to figure, Dunc decided. A lot of hill families would have gone without food during that dry-up if it hadn't been for the Brunner wagon-train raids. A lot of the womenfolks would still be wearing feed-sack dresses if it weren't for the bolt goods that Ike and Cal took off the mule skinners. And without Brunner money gifts, many of the hill farms would have been lost.
It was a funny thing. How could a man be so open-handed and big-hearted one day and turn killer the next?
Ponderously, Dunc moved the thought around in his mind. Not that it bothered him particularly. The raid on the freight company would bring in all kinds of things that the hill families needed: food, clothing, maybe even some shoes. Once there had been a wagon load of illegal whisky, and again a shipment of farm implements. Through some curious mental process Dunc had stopped thinking of these raids as stealing. Ike claimed that they were doing the fair thing, taking from the rich and giving to the poor. And Ike was always right.
Now Ike Brunner was staring thoughtfully at the ground, studying the list that he had scratched down in the dirt.
“Fifteen from the south,” he said. “Ten at least from the north. That ought to give us thirty men to hit the freight depot with.”
“Hell, we could take Reunion with that many men!” Cal Brunner said.
Ike fixed his cool gray eyes on his brother. “Reunion might be easier to take than that depot. Don't think they haven't heard of us down there, and don't think they won't have the place guarded.”
Then Ike turned his expressionless gaze on Dunc. “You better fill up on grub and get some rest,” he said. “Tomorrow you won't get much of either.”
The two brothers watched Dunc strip the bay and put the animal out to graze. Then they stood up and walked casually away from the cave. Cal shook his head, grinning. “I've got to hand it to you, Ike. The Doolins would still be operating if they had a gang like ours.”
“The Doolins were stupid,” Ike said flatly. “They tried to hold their gang together by dividing equally. These farmers wouldn't know an equal division if they got one; it would just make them hungry for more.”
Cal laughed. “So you don't give them anything!”
“Sure I give them something,” Ike said, looking hurt. “A bolt of cloth, some pots and pans, a plow. Maybe a bottle of whisky now and then. More important, I nurse their babies, get doctors for their wives, steal work mules for their farms. Those are the things that make them loyal to me, not money.”
Well away from the cave, they passed under a tall pine, and Cal's face was suddenly serious. “The trick, is to
Ike's long face grew hard. “Who said it?” he asked.
