went into dairy ranching, raising cotton. Lord knows, he’s rich as Croesus.”
“But why would he sell our mortgage to Adolph? He must have had a reason.”
Dag tried to summon up all that he knew about Elmer McGee. Just before the war, he had bought up a lot of old Spanish land grants all along Palo Duro Canyon. Like Dag, he had ridden with Colonel John Salmon Ford, old Rip Ford, in the Cavalry of the West. Elmer had been wounded before the last battle at Palmito Hill and had gone back to Amarillo. While in the cavalry, he told Dag that he’d sell him land for a good price after the war and he had done just that.
“All I can think of is that Adolph has something on Elmer, and he forced the sale of that mortgage. You know Adolph is a very shrewd businessman. He’s got that trading post, which he took over after the one at Quitaque went under. He sells mercantile and other goods to all the ranchers around here. Adolph’s probably richer than Elmer by now.”
“I still think Elmer should have told us first.”
“I would have thought so, hon,” Dag said, “which makes me think that Adolph has something on Elmer.”
“Blackmail?”
“Maybe. You know Adolph sold cotton during the war, and Elmer raised a hell of a lot of cotton. Maybe Elmer sold to the wrong side a time or two.”
“No, Elmer wouldn’t do that, would he?”
Dag looked at Laura, a tenderness in his eyes. He could see that she was on the brink of tears, almost ready to break down and cry on his shoulder. She was good with the money, but she took disappointments pretty hard.
“He might,” Dag said. “If he was pushed hard enough—or, if he had something else at stake, something that Deutsch knew about. A lever that Deutsch knew how to operate for his own benefit.”
The two looked at each other with a sudden flash of understanding.
“Let me see those papers again,” Dag said.
She didn’t hand them to him, but held on to one side of the papers, while Dag turned the pages. On page three were the signatures.
And there, next to those of Elmer McGee, and Adolph Deutsch, was the notary stamp. The signature was H. McGee. And beneath the stamp and the two signatures were those affirmations of the two witnesses, Sam Coker and Helga McGee.
“That little bitch,” Laura said.
“We should have known,” Dag said. “Elmer married Helga, and she’s very close to her father, Adolph. Elmer adores her.”
“And Helga adores her father,” Laura said.
“Yes, the little bitch.”
They both laughed. But the laughter faded quickly.
Laura pored over the papers again. “I feel betrayed,” she said.
“You can’t blame Elmer, Laura. Helga is a beautiful young woman and Elmer is older than I am. He probably doesn’t have that many years left. I know that wound he got in the war has worn him down. He doesn’t eat right; he doesn’t sleep well. Helga is the light of his life.”
“His miserable life,” Laura said bitterly. “Oh, people!”
“People will disappoint you, hon, more often than not.”
“I’m very worried now about the drive to Cheyenne. You’re short of cattle and it’s so far away.”
“Laura, I’m not going to give up. I’m not going to lie down and play dead because of Deutsch’s treachery. I’ll make the drive. I’ll find the cattle we need. And I’ll be back in time to pay off the mortgage.”
“Pay it off?”
“Every cent of it.”
“I love you, Felix,” she said. They embraced and she squeezed him hard against her.
That night, they made love as if it were their last night on earth. They were like two lovers in ancient Pompeii, with the volcano Vesuvius rumbling in the background just before it erupted and buried all in the town alive.
Chapter 7
Jubal Flagg, along with Manuel Chavez and Don Horton, rode up to the herd late the next afternoon, to find Dag and his men holding the herd on a patch of grass only two miles from where the cattle had been on the previous day under Barry Matlee’s supervision.
“I want this herd to start moving as soon as the sun sets,” Flagg said, as he stepped down from his horse Ranger, a tall black Missouri trotter that had been gelded.
“But Matlee and his cowhands won’t be back until tomorrow,” Dag said.
“I don’t give a damn,” Flagg said. “This herd is moving tonight. Barry can catch up with us. We’ll leave a wide enough trail.”
“We’re not out of grass here.”
“No, but you want to build this herd up, Dag, and we’re going to start tonight. I want you to give me two of your dumbest cowhands, right after dark. They’ll come with me, Don and Manny.”
“What do you aim to do, Jubal?”
“I’m going to teach them something, and then they can teach the rest of your hands. We’re, by God, going to build the damnedest herd that ever left the Caprock, and drive the sons of bitches up the Palo Duro.”
Flagg was an imposing figure. He stood a shade over six feet tall, with shoulders that were as wide as an ox yoke. Square-jawed, clean-shaven, he had dark brown eyes that were like twin gun barrels. His face was chiseled to a lean hardness that matched the rest of his body. His tan was deep, weathered like the soil that lined the Palo Duro Canyon, dark as old bronze. He wore a crumpled, weather-beaten felt hat and carried a Colt .44/40 on his hip. A big Sharps Yellow Boy rifle jutted from the scabbard attached to his saddle. And Dag knew he had two other pistols in his saddle bags, a Smith & Wesson .32, a belly gun, and another Colt .44, which matched the one he carried.
He wore a light blue chambray shirt, heavy duck trousers, and a red bandanna around his neck. A string to a sack of makings dripped from his shirt pocket, and he constantly chewed on a twist of strong tobacco, which he could spit, when chewed, with accuracy for a distance of at least ten feet. He took a pocketknife from his pants pocket and cut off a chunk of twist and slid it into the side of his mouth as he looked at the cattle grazing all around them.
Three riders circled the herd at a leisurely pace, while other hands worked on their tack and began to shake out bedrolls.
Flagg spat a plume of tobacco. “They won’t need those bedrolls tonight, Dag,” he said. “And you tell Fingers to feed ’em light tonight and be ready to move ten miles ahead of the herd right after he’s served the vittles. We’ll breakfast at the Foster ranch come morning.”
“You give me a lot of orders, Jubal.”
“That’s what you hired me for, Dag. Did you bring the cash?”
“Yep,” Dag said. “Scratched up all I could. Had to have Laura empty her cookie jar.”
“Give me some now, then.”
“How much?”
“Fifty or sixty ought to do it for now.”
“What for?”
“I’ll be buying some cattle along the way, just so we stay within the law.”
Dag counted out sixty dollars and handed the bills to Flagg. Jubal folded them and stuck them in the left front pocket of his trousers.
“Now hop to it, Dag. I want to see those two men I’m going to ride with tonight.”
Dag thought of whom he might tell to go with Flagg. He had a pair of fairly new hands he thought would fit the bill.
Jimmy Gough was still wrestling with the growing remuda. Gough had brought in a dozen horses that
