'No partic'lar reason. I never stay on one job too long. Sort of get off my feed if I do.'
'Sorry to lose you.' Logan poured a drink from the bottle. 'Going to work right away?'
'Uh-huh.' Nick's voice was elaborately casual. 'For Finn Mahone.' Logan put the bottle back on the bar. There might be more in this than was immediately apparent. Nick James was smart. Maybe he was too smart. 'I see,' he lifted his drink, 'but I didn't know Mahone used any hands?'
'Changed his mind, I guess.'
The door pushed open and Texas Dowd walked into the room. With him was Van Brewster. 'Where's Sonntag?'
Logan turned. 'Haven't seen him. What's the trouble?'
'Plenty!' Dowd's eyes were chill. 'Mex Roberts tried to dry-gulch me the other day. When I went through his pockets, I found nearly a hundred dollars. That's a lot of money for a range tramp. One o' the bills was stuck together with pink paper. Brewster here recognized it as one he lost in a poker game to Sonntag.'
'Sonntag's the type who does his own killing,' Logan suggested. 'You're on the wrong track, Dowd.'
'I'll make up my mind about that!' Dowd's voice was sharp. 'If Sonntag hired Roberts to kill me, he did it on orders. I want to know whose orders!'
Logan almost asked him who he believed had given the orders when he caught himself. If he asked that question Dowd might give the right answer, and if he did, it would mean a shooting. This was neither the time nor the place for that.
'That's an angle I hadn't thought of. Sonntag's out on the range somewhere, and I imagine he'll be in town tonight.'
'All right.' Dowd turned abruptly. 'Then tell him I want to see him. If he's got an explanation, I want it!'
Dowd strode out and Logan poured another drink. He was jumpy. That damned fool Sonntag! Why did he have to use a marked bill? This whole thing was going to bust wide open, and unless he was mistaken, Sonntag was down at Lettie Mason's right now.
Pierce Logan returned to his office and seated himself at his desk. Abe Mclnnis was down in bed and in no shape for anything. Van Brewster was a hotheaded fool. Remy Kastelle was a mere girl, and her father a lazy ex- gambler who would rather read books than work. Judge Collins was too old, and Finerty was not a gunfighter. Dean Armstrong could be taken care of at leisure.
It all boiled down to two men, and it always came back to them, to Dowd and Mahone. Dan Taggart, the foreman at the Spur, was rough and ready and a fighter if he ever made up his mind, but that was a process that ran as slow as molasses in January. There were only a few moves left; Logan just had to make those moves pay off.
It was time he rode out to the Lazy K and had a talk with Remy. Once they were married, he could have Dowd discharged, and the man would leave the range if Sonntag didn't kill him first. The time for waiting had passed, but definitely.
Pierce Logan went to his stable and threw a saddle on his horse. As he rode out of town, he saw a horseman far ahead. It was Nick James, on his way to the Notch.
Far ahead of Pierce Logan and already on Lazy K range, Banty Hull, Frank Salter, and Montana Kerr rode side by side. They had their orders from Sonntag, and immediately they moved out. They were after a bunch of Lazy K cattle. At the same time, far to the north and east of them, Ike Hibby, Alcorn, Leibman, and Ringer Cobb were moving down on one of Brewster's small herds.
With two hundred head, they started for Rawhide. This was no matter of altering brands, it was an outright, daylight steal.
Montana Kerr saw the rider first, and jerked his head at him. 'Who the hell is that?'
Hull rode up a little, peering under his pulled-down hat brim. 'Looks like Dan Taggart. Headed for the Lazy K, I reckon.'
'He's seen us.'
'Yeah.' Montana's voice was flat. 'I never liked him anyway.'
Taggart's route intersected theirs within two miles. He glanced from one to the other, and his heart began to pound. He had never seen Rawhide riders on this range before. Something in their eyes warned him, but Dan Taggart was not the man to back up, and even had he been, he would not have had a chance.
'Howdy, boys.' His eyes shifted from one to the other. Their faces were all grim, hostile. Some sixth sense told him what was coming. 'What's up?'
'Your number,' Hull said.
'Huh?' Taggart knew he was no match for these men. If he could get some cover, with his rifle, he might ... but there was no chance of that. It was here and now. 'You boys off your range, ain't you?'
'This is all our range,' Salter said harshly. 'Startin' t'day.'
'I reckon other folks'll disagree,' Taggart said. 'Tex Dowd for instance.'
'Dowd!' Salter spat the word. 'I reckon I know him. I know him from Missouri, and I'd like t'hang his hide on a fence!'
Taggart shrugged. 'Your business,' he told them. 'You boys go your way, an' I'll go mine. I reckon I'll be ridin' on.'
He had his hand in his lap, only inches from his gun, but he knew Montana Kerr, knew the man was a killer, and knew that even leaving the others out, he wouldn't have a chance. He started his horse and rode on. For a moment, he thought he would get away with it. Then Kerr yelled at him.
Dan Taggart turned in his saddle and Kerr's hand flashed with incredible speed. Taggart grabbed for his gun, but two slugs hit him and he went down, hitting the ground in a heap, and dead before he hit it.
All three men emptied their guns into his body. 'That'll be a lesson to 'em!' Salter's face was vicious as he spoke. 'No use to botch the job like we did on Mcln-nis.'
They swung wide and headed around the Lazy K, driving cattle ahead of them.
Behind them Dan Taggart lay sprawled in the thin prairie grass, his shirt darkly stained with blood, 'and the grass beneath him red. His gun was still in its worn holster.
His horse, after running away when Taggart's body fell from it, watched the three riders trot their horses from the scene of the killing. Curious, and lonely without its master, the cow horse walked back.
Taggart lay on the ground and the horse drew nearer. , At the smell of blood, it shied violently, rolling its eyes, but impelled by a curiosity greater than its sense of danger, moved closer. The smell of blood was too much for it, and jerking its head away, it trotted off a little distance.
On the crest of a rise it stopped briefly, looking back. Then, turning away, it trotted toward home, pausing from time to time to crop a mouthful of grass.
Chapter 6
Remy Kastelle sat on the cowhide-covered settee in the great, high-ceilinged living room of the Lazy K ranch house. The room as always was cool and still, and for this very reason she had always loved it. There was something of a cathedral hush in the great room, and the longer she lived in the house, the more she understood why her father had built the room so large.
Kastelle had put his book aside and was idly riffling a deck of cards through his fingers. He had never cared for his onetime profession, and had no longing to return to it. Yet his life had taught him the uncertainty of things if no more, and he felt the necessity of retaining all his old skill.
The silence in the big room was unbroken save for the ripple and snap of the cards. Kastelle shuffled the deck quickly, ran his thumb over the edges, and in a few rapid, easy movements, all apparently part of his shuffling, he had selected the proper cards and run up a couple of good hands.
He in-jogged the top card, took off the bottom and shuffled off, then, locating the break with a finger, he shuffled off again and with a neat throw had his stack on top. Then he cut the deck, shifted the cut back, and dealt the hands, three fives showing up in his imaginary opponent's hand, three jacks in his own.
From time to time he glanced at Remy, but said nothing. Her beauty always came to him with something of a shock. The fact that he had seen her grow from a long-legged, coltish girl, who lived only to ride, into a beautiful woman did nothing to detract from her beauty. Her mother had been lovely, and his own mother had been a beautiful woman, but neither of them could compare to the vivid loveliness that was his daughter.
