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It was raining when he rode out to the herd. “They ain’t fussin’,” Langer advised, “an’ the rain’s quiet enough. It should pass mighty easy. See you.”
He drifted toward camp, and Gary turned up his slicker collar and studied the herd as well as he could in the darkness. They were lying quiet. He was riding a gray roped from the small remuda, and he let the horse amble placidly toward the far side of the meadow. A hundred yards beyond the meadow the bulk of the sloping hill that formed the opposite side of the valley showed blacker in the gloom. Occasionally there was a flash of heat lightning, but no thunder.
Slagle had taken him on because he needed hands, but none of them accepted him. He decided to sit tight in his saddle and see what developed. It could be plenty, for unless he was mistaken, this was a stolen herd, and Slagle was a thief, as were the others.
If this herd had come far and fast, he had come farther and faster, and with just as great a need. Now there was nothing behind him but trouble, and nothing before him but bleak years of drifting ahead of a reputation.
Up ahead was Mart Ray, and Ray was as much of a friend as he had. Gunfighters are admired by many, respected by some, feared by all and welcomed by none. His father had warned him of what to expect, warned him long ago before he himself had died in a gun battle. “You’re right handy, Son,” he had warned, “one of the fastest I ever seen, so don’t let it be known. Don’t never draw a gun on a man in anger, an’ you’ll live happy. Once you get the name of a gunfighter, you’re on a lonesome trail, an’ there’s only one ending.”
So he had listened, and he had avoided trouble. Mart Ray knew that. Ray was himself a gunman. He had killed six men of whom Jim Gary knew, and no doubt there had been others. He and Mart had been riding together in Texas, and then in a couple of trail drives, one all the way to Montana. He never really got close to Mart, but they had been partners, after a fashion.
Ray had always been amused at his eagerness to avoid trouble, although he had no idea of the cause of it. “Well,” he had said, “they sure cain’t say like father, like son. From all I hear your pappy was an uncurried wolf, an’ you fight shy of trouble. You run from it. If I didn’t know you so well, I’d say you was yaller.”
But Mart Ray had known him well, for it had been Jim who rode his horse down in front of a stampede to pick Ray off the ground, saving his life. They got free, but no more, and a thousand head of mad cattle stampeded over the ground where Ray had stood.
Then, a month before, down in the Big Bend country, trouble had come, and it was trouble he could not avoid. It braced him in a little Mexican cantina just over the river, and in the person of a dark, catlike Mexican with small feet and dainty hands, but his guns were big enough and there was an unleashed devil in his eyes.
Jim Gary had been dancing with a Mexican girl and the Mexican had jerked her from his arms and struck her across the face. Jim knocked him down, and the Mexican got up, his eyes fiendish. Without a word, the Mexican went for his gun, and for a frozen, awful instant, Jim saw his future facing him, and then his own hand went down and he palmed his gun in a flashing, lightning draw that rapped out two shots. The Mexican, who had reached first, barely got his gun clear before he was dead. He died on his feet, then fell.
In a haze of powder smoke and anguish, Jim Gary had wheeled and strode from the door, and behind him lay dead and awful silence. It was not until two days later that he knew who and what he had killed.
The lithe-bodied Mexican had been Miguel Sonoma, and he had been a legend along the Border. A tough, dangerous man with a reputation as a killer.
Two nights later, a band of outlaws from over the Border rode down upon Gary’s little spread to avenge their former leader, and two of them died in the first blast of gun fire, a matter of hand guns at point-blank range.
From the shelter of his cabin, Gary fought them off for three days before the smoke from his burning barn attracted help. When the help arrived, Jim Gary was a man with a name. Five dead men lay on the ground around the ranch yard and in the desert nearby. The wounded had been carried away. And the following morning, Jim turned his ranch over to the bank to sell, and lit a shuck—away from Texas.
Of this Mart Ray knew nothing. Half of Texas and all of New Mexico, or most of it, would lie behind him when he reached the banks of Salt Creek. Mart Ray was ramrodding the Double A, and he would have a job for him.
CHAPTER TWO: Ghost with the Night Herd
Jim Gary turned the horse and rode slowly back along the side of the herd. The cattle had taken their midnight stretch and after standing around a bit, were lying down once more. The rain was falling, but softly, and Gary let the gray take his own time in skirting the herd.
The night was pitch dark. Only the horns of the cattle glistened with rain, and their bodies were a darker blob in the blackness of the night. Once, drawing up near the willows along the stream, Jim thought he detected a vague sound. He waited a moment, listening. On such a night nobody would be abroad who could help it, and it was unlikely that a mountain lion would be on the prowl, although possible.
He started on again, yet now his senses were alert, and his hand slid under his slicker and touched the butt of a .44. He was almost at the far end of the small herd when a sudden flash of lightning revealed the hillside across the narrow valley.
Stark and clear, glistening with rain, sat a horseman! He was standing in his stirrups, and seemed amazingly tall, and in the glare of the flash, his face was stark white, like the face of a fleshless skull!
Startled, Gary grunted and slid his gun into his hand, but all was darkness again. And listen as he could, he heard no further sound. When the lightning flashed again, the hillside was empty and still. Uneasily, he caught himself staring back over his shoulder into the darkness, and he watched his horse. The gray was standing, head up and ears erect, staring off toward the darkness near the hill. Riding warily, Gary started in that direction, but when he got there, he found nothing.
It was almost daylight when he rode up to the fire which he had kept up throughout the night, and swinging down, he awakened Dirksen. The man sat up, startled. “Hey!” he exclaimed. “You forgot to call me?”
Jim gri
Jeeter stared at him. “You mean you rode for me? Say, you’re all right!”
“Forget it!” Gary stretched. “I had a quiet night, mostly.” Red Slagle was sitting up, awakened by their talk. “What do you mean—mostly?”
Jim hesitated, feeling puzzled. “Why, to tell you the truth, I’m not sure whether I saw anything or not, but I sure thought I did. Anyway, it had me scared.”
“What was it?” Slagle was pulling on his pants, but his eyes were serious. “A lion?”
“No, it was a man on a horse. A tall man with a dead white face, like a skull.” Gary shrugged sheepishly. “Makes me sound like a fool, but I figured for a moment that I’d seen a ghost!”
Red Slagle was staring at him, and Jeeter’s face was dead white and his eyes were bulging. “A ghost?” he asked, faintly. “Did you say, a ghost?”
“Shucks,” Gary shrugged, “there ain’t no such thing. Just some hombre on a big black horse, passin’ through in the night, that was all! But believe me, seein’ him in the lightnin’ up on that hill like I did, it sure was scary!”
Tobe Langer was getting up, and he too, looked bothered. Slagle came over to the fire and sat down, boots in hand. Reaching down he pulled his sock around to get a hole away from his big toe, then he put his foot into the wet boot and began to struggle with it.