'Sure,' Mahone said. 'But there's room enough for both of us. You don't run cattle, I don't trap beaver. You and me, friends, huh?'
The Indian studied the proposition. 'Sure,' he said, after a while. 'Friends.' Then he added, 'Me Shoshone Charlie.'
'My name's Finn Mahone.' He grinned at the Indian. 'You been to Rawhide ... the little town?'
'Rawhide no good. Rico no good. Plenty bad white man. Too much shootin'.' Charlie nodded. 'Already see two white man, ride much along big river. One white man tall, not much meat, bad cut like so,' he indicated a point over the eye. 'Other white man short, plenty thick. Bay pony.'
Frank Salter and Banty Hull. They had been scouting the upper Laird River Canyon. That was on this side of Rico, and beyond the Rimrock from the Laird Valley. It was far off their own range. If they were scouting along there, the chances were they were looking for the route he took to Rico on his cattle drives. He forded the river in the bottom of that canyon.
'Thanks. Those men are plenty bad.' Mahone watched the light changing on the mountainside across the Crystal Valley. The Indian knew plenty, and given time, might talk. He had a feeling he had won a friend in the old man.
'I'm headin' back,' he said, 'after a bit. Suppose you need sugar, tobacco? You come to see me. Plenty of coffee, too. I always have some in the pot, and if I'm not home, you get a cup and have some. Better not go into Rawhide, unless you have to.' The Indian watched him as he rode away.
He was restless, knowing things were coming to a head. It disturbed him that Remy thought of him as a rustler. The girl had stirred him more deeply than he liked to admit. Yet, even as he thought of that, he knew it went further. She was so much the sort of person he had always wanted.
If he had read the bullet-marked playing card right, Texas Dowd finally knew he was on the range. The fact that he was riding for her would account for the excellent cattle she had, and the condition of her grass. In his months of riding the Highbinders, he had watched with interest the shifting of the Lazy K cattle. The ground was never grazed too long, and the cattle were moved from place to place with skill instead of allowing them to range freely. They had been shifted to the lowlands during the spring months and then, as hotter weather drew near, moved back where there was shade and greener grass from sub irrigated land near the hills.
Dowd would know that Finn Mahone was no rustler, whatever else he might think of him.
Once home, he stabled his horse, gave it a brisk rub-down, and went into the house. After a leisurely supper he brewed an extra pot of coffee, hot and black, and sat' down by the lamp. He picked up a book, but found himself thinking instead of the girl with golden hair who had watched his fight from the boardwalk. He recalled the flash of her eyes as he had told her he refused to sell the stallion. He sighed, and settled in to a few hours of reading.
In the rambling adobe house on the Lazy K, Remy walked into the spacious, high-ceilinged living room, and sat down. 'Dad,' she asked suddenly, 'have you ever heard of a man named Mahone?'
Frenchy Kastelle sat up in his chair and put his book down. He was a lean, aristocratic man with white hair at his temples and dark, intelligent eyes. He was French mixed with California Spanish, and he had lived on the San Francisco waterfront in exciting and dangerous times. Finally, he had gone into the cattle business in Texas.
His knowledge of cattle was sketchy, but he got into a country where there was free range, and made the most of it. Yet he was just puttering along and breaking even when Texas Dowd rode over the border on a spent horse. The two became friends, and he hired the taciturn Texan as foreman. Few better cattlemen lived, and the ranch prospered, but newcomers began crowding in, and at Dowd's suggestion, they abandoned the ranch and moved westward to the distant Laird River Valley.
The route had been rough, and not unmarked with incident. Texas Dowd had proved himself a fighting man as well as a cattleman.
Frenchy knew how to appreciate a fighting man. Casual and easygoing in bearing, he was a wizard with cards and deadly with a gun. He was, he confessed, a man who loved his leisure. He was willing enough to leave his ranch management to the superior abilities and energies of Remy and Dowd.
He looked at his daughter with interest. For the past two years he had been aware that she was no longer a child, that she was a young lady with a mind of her own. He had looked at first with some disquiet, being entirely foreign to the problem of what to do about a young lady who was blossoming into such extravagant womanhood.
This was the first time she had ever manifested anything more than casual interest in any man, although Frenchy was well aware that Pierce Logan had been taking her to dances in Laird.
'Mahone?' He closed his book and placed it on the table. 'Isn't he that chap who lives back in the mountains? Buys a lot of books, I hear.'
He studied his daughter shrewdly. 'Why this sudden interest?' |
'Oh, nothing. Only there was a fight today, and this Mahone fellow whipped that brute Leibman from over at Rawhide. Gave him an awful beating.'
'Whipped Leibman?' Kastelle was incredulous. 'I'd like to have seen that. Leibman used to fight on the coast, rough-and-tumble fights for a prize. He was a bruiser.'
'Dowd won money on Mahone, and from the way he acts I think he knows something about him. He seemed so sure that he would beat Leibman.'
'Then why not ask him?' Kastelle suggested.
'I know, Dad,' she protested, 'but he won't tell me anything. As far as that goes, I don't even know anything about Dowd!'
'Well, it is sometimes best not to ask too much about a man; judge him by his actions ... that's a courtesy that I have taken advantage of as much as anyone. Texas Dowd is the best damned cattleman that ever came west of the Mississippi, and that includes Jesse Chisholm, Shanghai Pierce, or any of them! What more do you want?'
'What do you know about him?' Remy demanded. 'What did he do before he came to us? He had been shot, but who had done it? Who, in all this world, could make Texas Dowd run?'
Kastelle shrugged and lifted his eyebrows. 'A man may run from many things, Remy. He may run from fear of killing as much as fear of death. Fewer run for that reason, but a good man might.
'I've never asked him any questions and he hasn't volunteered anything. However, there are a few things one may deduce. He's been in the army at some time, as one can see by the way he sits a horse and carries his shoulders. He's been in more than one fight, as he is too cool in the face of trouble not to have had experience.
'Moreover, he's been around a lot. He knows New Orleans and Natchez, for instance. He also knows something about St. Louis and Kansas City, and he's hunted buffalo. Also, he knows a good deal about Mexico and speaks Spanish fluently. We know all these things, but what is important is that he is not only our foreman but our friend. He has shown us that, and that is the only thing that has any real meaning.'
Remy walked out on the wide flagstone terrace in front of the ranch house. The stars were very bright, and the breeze was cool. Looking off in the distance she could see the dark loom of the Highbinders, jagged along the skyline. She tried to tell herself she was only interested in Mahone because of that magnificent horse, but she knew it was untrue.
She detected a movement near the corrals, and saw Dowd's white shirt. She left the terrace and walked toward him across the hard-packed earth of the yard. 'Texas!' she called.
He turned, a lean, broad-shouldered figure, the moonlight silver on his hat. 'Howdy, Remy,' he said. 'Out late, ain't you?'
'Texas,' she demanded abruptly, 'what do you know about Finn Mahone?' Then hastily, to cover up 'I mean, is he a rustler?'
Texas Dowd drew on his cigarette, and it glowed brightly. 'No, ma'am, I don't guess he is. Howsoever, men change. He wouldn't have been once, but he might be now. But offhand, I'd say no. I'd have to be shown proof before I'd believe it.'
'Where did you know him?'
'Don't rightly recall saying I did,' Dowd said. 'Maybe it was just a name that sounded familiar. Maybe he just looked like somebody I used to know.'
'Where?' she persisted.
'Remy,' Dowd said slowly, 'I want to tell you something. You stay clear of Finn Mahone! He's a dangerous
