“I don't know. Maybe nobody; but they're thinkin' it.”
“You're gettin' to be an old woman, Cal. Just let me do the thinkin'.”
Cal shrugged. “Don't say I didn't warn you.”
He started to walk back toward the cave, but Ike called to him. “Just a minute, Cal. Where did you go last night?”
“Why, nowhere, Ike. I was right there at the cave.”
“That's a lie,” Ike said coldly. “I saw you get up and sneak out, and I heard your horse beat tracks to the south. Couldn't be you was sniffin' around Mort Stringer's girl again, could it?”
Cal was visibly shaken by his brother's anger. He started backing off as Ike came toward him, then Ike's hand shot out and grabbed his young brother's arm in a grip of iron. “I warned you to stay away from that girl,” Ike said between his teeth. “You know how Mort Stringer feels about his daughter.”
They stood there for one long moment, Cal's face pale, his brother's face red with anger. Gradually Ike released his hold on his brother's arm. “I've made too many plans, Cal,” he said tightly, “to have them kicked over by the likes of you. These hill people may not like me, but they respect me. And that's the way I'm goin' to keep it. So you fool around with somebody else's girl, but not Mort Stringer's. Understand?”
“Sure, Ike!” Cal nodded eagerly. “I understand!”
“You'd better. And just in case you ever forget this talk... don't say I didn't warn you.”
After the younger brother had beaten a quick retreat back to the cave, Ike Brunner hunkered down beneath the pine, scowling. He didn't like jumping on Cal, but the young hothead stood to ruin every plan he had made. Mort Stringer was a powerful man in these hills, a preacher of sorts who officiated at weddings and funerals. Ike had wisely stayed away from the man, had made every effort not to antagonize him, for he knew what power these backwoods preachers held over the people.
Well, he thought hopefully, maybe I've knocked some sense into Cal's head before it's too late.
Early the next morning the Brunner followers began gathering at Ulster's Cave. They were grim men, many of them, old with work and hopeless in this dawn of a new age that they could not understand. They came heavy with guns: shotguns and rifles and pistols, and here and there a muzzle-loading musket. They came with outraged stories of government men breaking up their stills, and of the court actions being taken against them by the Indians. They were angry men when they arrived at Ulster's Cave, and Ike Brunner was pleased.
Cal Brunner moved among them and came back to his brother, grinning. “They sure look loaded for bear!”
“That's the way I want them,” Ike said. Then he walked out and addressed the men in front of the cave.
“Men,” he said, “I know what kind of a raw deal you've been gettin'. Us hillfolks was peace-lovin' people before outsiders began comin' in and started to ruin things. Now the Indians are gettin' uppity, thinkin' they're as good as white people. And do you know who's to blame for all your trouble? I'll tell you who's to blame. It's these outsiders from the East that claim we've got no right to our land. They say they're goin' to sell our land and give the money to the Indians. But that ain't what they've got in mind. What they want to do is turn this land over to the big-money boys back East, so's they can cut down all our timber. Then they'll want to build roads—maybe even railroads—here in the hills, so's they can take our timber out. I tell you, men, what the government's tryin' to do is give us a good skinnin' just so the rich bastards back East can get richer than they already are!”
The men looked at each other and nodded. Ike was right.
“The good Lord knows I've tried to help you,” Ike went on. “But it's come to the point where we all have to pitch in and fight together. If there's anybody here that don't want to fight, I want to hear from him now.”
For a moment there was silence. Then Wes Longstreet, a gangly hothead from Arkansas, spoke for all of them. “We're with you, Ike. We know you're right.”
“All right,” Ike said. “I just wanted to be sure. Now I've got in mind the biggest operation we ever tried. I've got it all planned and, there won't be any slip-ups. How many of you know where Fort Bellefront is?”
Bellefront had once been a fort and later a Cherokee mission. Now it was a freight depot on the stage road linking the Katy railroad, in the east, to the Santa Fe, in the central part of the state. Bellefront was the place where rail freight was brought in on heavy Studebaker wagons to be transferred for shipment to other parts of the state not yet serviced by the steel tracks. All the hill people knew where Bellefront was and what it was. Every man raised his hand to Ike's question.
“Well,” Ike continued, “Bellefront's our target. By hittin' that depot we'll be hittin' the Easterners where it hurts, in their profits. This will be the biggest haul we've ever made; there'll be bolt goods and canned goods and farm tools. Whisky and guns and ammunition. All the things you and your families need are there at the depot waitin' for us to haul it off.”
The men grinned slowly, thoughtfully. “But I want to warn you,” Ike said again. “There'll be a fight.” When no one spoke up, Ike turned to his brother. “All right. We might as well get started.”
Ike and Cal Brunner, plus thirty-one followers, rode away from Ulster's Gave shortly before noon. They headed north.
Thirty-three men in all, Ike was thinking. Plenty of manpower for the job ahead. There'd be nothing left but ashes when they got through with that depot. Then Ike turned his thoughts to something else, and for an instant his stonelike face was touched with an expression that few men had ever seen. He was smiling.
He was not thinking of all that freight and material, or the loose money that might be lying about at the depot. He was thinking of the freight-company safe, and of the riches that were there for the taking. He thought of the four sticks of dynamite that he had wrapped separately and carefully in the shock-absorbing bulk of four blankets; the roll now lashed securely behind his saddle. By sunup I'll be a rich man! Ike Brunner thought to himself. Maybe I'll be the richest man in Oklahoma!
The Brunner gang rode most of the night through that wild, heavily wooded hill country, and as the first gray streaks of dawn were appearing in the east Cal rode back from his point position to report to his brother.
“Looks like we're here,” the younger Brunner said, grinning wearily.
