Страница 47 из 52
Gray Bowen balled his big hands into fists. “You’ve got a gall, Jim! You know better than to countermand an order of mine! And you’ll leave me to decide what range I need! Katrishen’s got no business on Iron Creek an’ I told him so! I told him to get off an’ get out! As for this range-war talk, that’s foolishness! He won’t fight!”
“Putting them off would be a very simple matter,” Lee Martin interposed quietly. “If you hadn’t interfered, Sandifer, they would be off now and the whole matter settled.”
“Settled nothin’!” Jim exploded. “Where did you get this idea that Bill Katrishen could be pushed around? The man was an officer in the Army during the war, an’ he’s fought Indians on the plains.”
“You must be a great friend of his,” Rose Martin said gently, “you know so much about him.”
The suggestion was there and Gray Bowen got it. He stopped in his pacing and his face was like a rock. “You been talkin’ with Katrishen? You sidin’ that outfit?”
“This is my outfit, I ride for the brand,” Sandifer replied. “I know Katrishen, of course. I’ve talked to him.”
“And to his daughter?” Lee suggested, his eyes bright with malice. “With his pretty daughter?”
Out of the tail of his eye Jim saw Elaine’s head come up quickly, but he ignored Lee’s comment. “Stop and think,” he said to Bowen, “when did this trouble start? When Mrs. Martin and her son came here! You got along fine with Katrishen until then! They’ve been putting you up to this!”
Bowen’s eyes narrowed. “That will be enough of that!” He said sharply. He was really furious now, not the flaring, hot fury that Jim knew so well, but a cold, hard anger that nothing could touch. For the first time Jim realized how futile any argument was going to be. Rose Martin and her son had insinuated themselves too much and too well into the picture of Gray Bowen’s life.
“You wanted my report,” Sandifer said quietly. “Mont wouldn’t listen to my arguments for time. He said he had his orders and would take none from me. I told him then that if he rode forward it was against my gun. He laughed at me, then reached for his gun. I shot him.”
Gray Bowen’s widened eyes expressed his amazement.
“You shot Mont? You beat him to the draw?”
“That’s right. I didn’t want to kill him but I shot the gun out of his hand and held my gun on him for a minute to let him know what it meant to be close to death. Then I started them back here.”
Bowen’s anger was momentarily swallowed by his astonishment. He recalled suddenly that in the three years Sandifer had worked for him there had been no occasion for him to draw a gun in anger. There had been a few brushes with Apaches and one with rustlers, but all rifle work. Klee Mont was a killer with seven known killings on his record and had been reputed to be the fastest gunhand west of the Rio Grande.
“It seems peculiar,” Mrs. Martin said composedly, “for you to turn your gun on men who ride for Mr. Bowen, taking sides against him. No doubt you meant well, but it does seem strange.”
“Not if you know the Katrishens,” Jim replied grimly. “Bill was assured he could settle on that Iron Creek holding before he moved in. He was told that we made no claim on anything beyond Willow and Gilita Creeks.”
“Who,” Lee insinuated, “assured him of that?”
“I did,” Jim said coolly. “Since I’ve been foreman we’ve never run any cattle beyond that boundary. Iron Mesa is a block that cuts us off from the country south of there, and the range to the east is much better and open for us clear to Beaver Creek and south to the Middle Fork.”
“So you decide what range will be used? I think for a hired hand you take a good deal of authority. Personally, I’m wondering how much your loyalty is divided. Or if it is divided. It seems to me you act more as a friend of the Katrishens—or their daughter.”
Sandifer took a step forward. “Martin,” he said evenly, “are you aimin’ to say that I’d double-cross the boss? If you are, you’re a liar!”
Bowen looked up, a chill light in his eyes that Sandifer had never seen there before. “That will be all, Jim. You better go.”
Sandifer turned on his heel and strode outside.
CHAPTER TWO: Fight in the Hills
When Sandifer walked into the bunkhouse, the men were already back. The room was silent, but he was aware of the hatred in the cold blue eyes of Mont as he lay sprawled in his bunk. His right hand and wrist were bandaged. The Mello boys snored in their bunks while Art Du
“Hello—lucky,” Mont rolled up on his elbow. “Lose your job?”
“Not yet,” Jim said shortly, aware that his remark brought a fleeting anger to Mont’s eyes.
“You will!” Mont assured him. “If you are in the country when this hand gets well, I’ll kill you!”
Jim Sandifer laughed shortly. He was aware that the older hands were listening, although none would have guessed it without knowing them.
“You called me lucky, Klee. It was you who were lucky in that I didn’t figure on killin’ you. That was no miss. I aimed for your gunhand. Furthermore, don’t try pullin’ a gun on me again. You’re too slow!”
“Slow?” Mont’s face flamed. He reared up in his bunk. “Slow? Why, you two-bit bluffer!”
Sandifer shrugged. “Look at your hand,” he said calmly. “If you don’t know what happened, I do. That bullet didn’t cut your thumb off. It doesn’t go up your hand or arm; the wound runs across your hand!”
They all knew what he meant. Sandifer’s bullet must have hit his hand as he was in the act of drawing and before the gun came level, indicating that Sandifer had beaten Mont to the draw by a safe margin. That Klee Mont realized the implication was plain for his face darkened, then paled around the lips. There was pure hatred in his eyes when he looked up at Sandifer.
“I’ll kill you!” he said viciously. “I’ll kill you!”
As Sandifer started outside “Rep” Dean followed him. With Grimes and Sparkman he was one of the older hands.
“What’s come over this place, Jim? Six months ago there wasn’t a better spread in the country!”
Sandifer did not reply, and Dean built a smoke. “It’s that woman,” he said. “She twists the boss around her little finger. If it wasn’t for you, I’d quit, but I’m thinkin’ that there’s nothin’ she wouldn’t like better than for all of the old hands to ask for their time.”
Sparkman and Grimes had followed them from the bunk-house. Sparkman was a lean-bodied Texan with some reputation as an Indian fighter.
“You watch your step,” Grimes warned. “Next time Mont will backshoot you!”
They talked among themselves and, as they conversed, he ran his thoughts over the developments of the past few months. He had heard enough of Mrs. Martin’s sly insinuating remarks to understand how she had worked Bowen up to ordering Katrishen driven off, yet there was no apparent motive. It seemed obvious that the woman had her mind set on marrying Gray Bowen, but for that it was not essential that any move be made against the Katrishens.
Sandifer’s limitation of B Bar range had been pla
His willingness to have the Katrishens move in on Iron Creek was not without the B Bar in mind. He well knew that range lying so much out of the orbit of the ranch could not be long held tenantless, and the Katrishens were stable, honest people who would make good neighbors and good allies. Thinking back, he could remember almost to the day when the first rumors began to spread, and most of them had stemmed from Lee Martin himself. Later, one of the Mello boys had come in with a bullet hole in the crown of his hat and a tale of being fired on from Iron Mesa.