over backward.
Coming to her feet, the woman reloaded the Double Derringer and dropped it into her jacket pocket. Without a glance at the dying man, she buttoned her shirt and closed the jacket over it.
“I figured you’d fall for that, you lousy murdering skunk,” she remarked, picking up and putting on her hat.
Her horse had come to a halt a short distance away and she walked to it. Taking the reins, she set a foot into the stirrup iron and swung gracefully into her saddle. Ignoring Gooch as if he did not exist—and he no longer did except as a lump of lifeless flesh—the woman rode back in the direction from which she fled.
Back at the hollow, the woman showed no more interest in the two dead cowhands than she had for Gooch’s welfare. Swinging from the saddle, she stood for a moment and thought out the situation. First those half-a-dozen calves must be released. It was a pity they had only branded three of the animals. Alone she could not handle the branding of the others. Besides somebody might have heard the shooting and even now be riding to investigate. Shots in the dark on the Caspar County range would attract more attention under the prevailing conditions than normally and she had no wish to be caught. Being a smart woman, she did not regard the ranchers as fools, or figure they could not think things out. Maybe they might not be able to prove anything against her, but they sure would be suspicious to see
Taking up a knife one of the cowhands had tossed into the dirt so as to be handy for hurried freeing of the calves, the woman walked forward and released the unbranded animals. As she expected, they wasted no time in heading off through the bushes, blatting loudly and looking for their mothers. She collected the two dead cowhands’ ropes and with her own secured the three branded calves to her saddlehorn. After cutting the calves’ hobbles, she mounted the horse.
“Hard luck, boys,” she said, throwing a glance at the two shapes by the dying fire. “That’s life for you.”
And with no more sentiment than that, the woman rode away, leading the three calves behind her. She left behind two dead cowhands—and two running irons.
Chapter 2 SHE’S A MIGHTY SMART WOMAN
STANTON HOWARD, GOVERNOR OF THE STATE OF Texas, was a busy man who could quite well have done without the cow thief problem of Caspar County being dumped in his lap. Brought in after the Texans’ forcible ejection of Carpetbag Davis’ corrupt, vicious Reconstruction administration, Howard found enough work to last him a solid twenty-four hours a day—he could have worked twenty-six hours a day if that be possible and still find work to do in plenty the following morning.
The disbanding of Davis’ State Police had brought problems in its wake. For several years there had been little State law enforcement in Texas, Davis’ men being more concerned with lining their own pockets in the guise of elevating the Negro to the status of a citizen with equal rights. With the departure of the State Police commanders—or such of them who did not meet not undeserved fates on the end of a rope—the colored policemen slipped back to their homes, or wandered northward in search of a land flowing with milk and honey. In the place of the State Police, the Texas Rangers returned from their Davis-inspired removal. Honest men, many of whom could have earned far more than their Ranger’s wages in other, less dangerous walks of life, joined. The Texas Rangers asked little of its recruits other than loyalty, courage, ability to ride anything with four legs and hair and the knowledge of how to handle firearms.
However, with every Ranger working full time, Howard could well have done without receiving the letter from Caspar County. Yet one of the Governor’s most pressing duties was to appease those Texans—and there were many—who had developed a hearty hatred of authority as represented by Washington’s appointed head of the State. Knowing Texans, for he belonged to the Lone Star State himself, Howard could read between the lines of the letter. He smelled trouble in the air, far more trouble than one might expect from the theft of a few cows.
A jerk on the bell cord hanging behind him brought one of Howard’s hard-working secretaries into the well- furnished room.
“Get Captain Murat for me,” the Governor said.
Five minutes later the door opened and a tall, slim, dark man in his early thirties entered. Although Captain Jules Murat, commander of Troop “G,” Texas Rangers, wore town clothes, he carried himself with the swing of a horseman. One might almost imagine him wearing a plumed, cocked hat, a cloak over a Hussar uniform, a saber at his side instead of a brace of holstered 1860 Army Colts, for there was a Gasconading air about him, a hint of controlled, deadly recklessness. Tanned, handsome, very rich, Murat was still one of the best Ranger captains under Howard’s command.
“Trouble, Jules,” Howard said, waving Murat into a chair and offering his cigar case.
“No thanks,” replied Murat, taking a cigar. “We’ve plenty of our own.”
“I hate a humorist at this hour of the day,” grunted the Governor.
“And me. What kind of trouble have you for me this time, Stan?”
“Cow thieves.”
Clipping the end off his cigar, Murat looked down at the weed. Although he showed nothing of his emotions, Murat had been sweating out the thought that the trouble might be yet another blood feud sprung out of the hatreds left behind by Davis’ administration. Man, there you had real Texas-size trouble. With an entire county taking one side or the other, it was surely hell trying to discover the rights and wrongs of the affair, locate and arrest killers from either faction and pacify the rest before more blood spilled.
“There’s plenty of them around,” he remarked, showing remarkable tolerance for a man who owned a good- sized spread and large herd.
“Small stuff,” stated the Governor. “It’s gone beyond being small up to Caspar County, Jules.”
Watching Howard, the Ranger captain felt his usual admiration. Sigmund Freud had not yet got around to presenting his views on human mentality to the world so, not knowing he should subconsciously hate his employer, Murat was willing to respect Howard as a brilliant man doing a difficult task. No matter what happened in Texas, sooner or later—and mostly sooner—Howard heard of it. More than that, the Governor formed his own conclusions from what he heard and mostly those conclusions proved to be correct. Mostly Howard left the Rangers to their own devices. When he called in one of the captains commanding the various companies, it meant Howard felt more than usually concerned about some incident or other.
“I smell bad trouble brewing up there, Jules,” the Governor went on. “Vic Crither’s passed word for Bat Gooch.”
“That
“Get the cow thieves—at two hundred dollars a head.”
Murat did not hold down his low whistle. “That trouble you smell, I can get scent of it now. Gooch’ll not be content just to ride Crither’s range and let his name scare off any festive jasper with a running iron. He’ll go out looking for the cow thieves no matter whose land they’re working on.”
“You’re right,” Howard agreed. “With a man like Gooch riding the range, trouble’s just over the rim and in peeking out ready to come boiling over. Bringing Gooch in’s like turning loose a rabid dog to hunt down coyotes.”
“No man likes to see his property stole from under him,” Murat remarked.
“Which same I’ll give you,” Howard replied. “But there are better ways of stopping it than fetching in professional killers. Like you say, Gooch’s not going to be content with just scaring the cow thieves off, he’s there after a bounty. Only if he goes on to some other range, or downs an innocent man, he’ll blow up all hell. I want action on this, Jules—and I want it fast.”
When Murat nodded his agreement he was not merely giving lip-service. After nine months in office together, Murat had learned to respect Howard’s judgment and knew the Governor’s insistence on immediate action did not spring from either panic or vote catching. Howard knew Texans, knew their high temper, their loyalty to kin or
