"Goddamn it!" came the voice of Monte Walsh, thin, knife-edged. "You mean anything by that and I'll-"
"Quit it, Monte," said Chet Rollins. "He's right. I was there."
"Chet here," said Hat. "An' Shorty an'-an' Powder. An' to show you I ain't meaning a thing, Monte, I'm saying I was there too. End man on the swing. Right down from that timber where you say you found some."
Cal Brennan had been stiffening some in his chair. "Kiens?" he said.
"Him?" said Hat. "I left him with the wagon an' to get the fires going. Seeing as he didn't know the country much yet."
Cal sighed again, long and slow. He seemed to have shrunk back into shadow in his chair. "Chet an' Shorty an' Powder. An' you, Hat. I'd as soon say it was me." And Cal kept on talking, trying to convince himself as well as the others, aware he was failing and talking anyway, talking just to have the words said and to have some basis for confronting the days ahead. "To be fair it could be anybody, bein' that nobody can be sure how much those cows've shifted since. To be fair too it could be there's a pocket in there somewheres they was hidin' in an' they was plain missed. Like you say, Hat, that's a lot of country. I expect this is something we just got to live with. For now anyways."
* * *
No, Cal had not convinced anyone, least of all himself. It was too plain a possibility, with Kiens ruled out, that one of his regular men was or had been infected with rustling fever. He could cross off Jumping Joe, who had been recovering from his own fever of another kind. And himself. And Skimpy Eagens, the cook. In any fair facing of facts, it could be any of the others.
While the impact of that situation was spreading through the Slash Y, slow because there was scant open talk of it, Cal tried another move. He pulled Dally from regular work and put him to riding long hours and many miles. Dally carried an iron and he paid particular attention to calves and three times he roped and hog-tied husky young ones and looked long at their ears and built small fires and heated the iron and used it.
"Three," he told Cal. "Just a samplin' that likely means more an' we'll have to look sharp in the fall gather. Our somebody didn't just leave some slicks back in the rough country. He must of been plenty busy even before the brandin'. Sleeperin'. Earmarkin' so we'd think they was already burned an' pass 'em in the shuffle."
"Somebody," said Cal. "I'm gettin' to hate that word. It still means anybody. Even you, Dally."
"Yes," said Dally, eyes narrowing in his weathered scramble of features. "I reckon from where you're standin', Cal, even me."
* * *
So the days moved along, seeming about as usual. But there was a slow increasing drag to them. An uneasy suspicion hung over the Slash Y. Oh, work was being done and well done, but it was done with the hard indifferent competence of men doing merely what they were paid to do. The zest was gone, the strong subtle undercurrent of pride in the work, of simple unthinking confidence and loyalty in each other. Tempers were growing short. Tension was creeping into the bunkhouse. Men were becoming guarded in their talk. They tended to withdraw into themselves, singly or by twos, forming tight increasingly defensive little groups according to the personal trusts between them.
"Godamighty, Chet," said Monte Walsh. "I'm about ready to blow. Can't look straight at anyone. Always wondering is he the one. It ain't those silly calves. Shucks, there's hardly a one of us ain't snitched a calf one time or another when we was hungry. Or maybe done a little mavericking. You know well as I do there's cowmen mighty respected now got their start that way. But things ain't as free and easy as they used to be. And this bastard's letting the rest of us down. Hitting his own outfit. He's kicking us where it hurts. Shucks, I always liked old Cal. Best damn boss we ever found. But every time I see him looking at you, I get to thinking he's thinking how Hat gave your name. I feel like busting him one. Maybe we ought to pull out."
"Shut up," said Chet Rollins. "You're just blowing. I didn't know you're not one to pull out when things get rough, I'd of shook you long ago."
So the days moved along, seeming, only seeming, about as usual. A company shareholder came West and spent a week's vacation sleeping in the ranch house and loafing around on a quiet old horse and he thought everything was fine, rather stern and hard but fine, and he never knew the fact he had a quiet horse and the lack of any delighted attention to his tenderfoot antics meant anything at all. But Cal Brennan knew. He knew in every fiber of his lean aging carcass. The feeling of an outfit functioning, grim or rollicking as occasion called and always together, was slipping away. Oh, the cattle were fat and healthy and unless something drastic happened the balance sheet would satisfy the company. But the Slash Y, his Slash Y, was coming apart. The split-up would come, certain as the seasons. He moped on the old veranda, rocking slow in the old chair, and beat his brains as he would, there seemed to be nothing he could do. Not until the big rain.
There had been the few normal midsummer thunderstorms, better than normal because the rain came down relatively slow, soaking into the ground, good for the thirsty grasses. This one, late and unseasonal, swept down from the mountains, torrential, sheeting the ground in rapid runoff, and flashfloods roared along the arroyos and rushed in walls of sand and silt-clogged water to dwindle at last in little rivulets and shallow pools along the far courses.
Back along the ways fresh built sand and mud bars waited for the unwary. The storm passed and the sun shone and the surface of the bars dried quickly, but below moisture remained, lingering in treacherous ooze.
Men rode in pairs, tailing up and coaxing or lashing into activity cows that had blundered hock-deep and more into trouble and struggled a while then in the resignation of their kind had lain down to accept the inevitable whatever that might be. They had their ropes and one of each pair carried a small short miner's shovel for use with those in too deep or too exhausted to help themselves being helped.
Monte Walsh and Chet Rollins, mud-caked to the knees, mud-spattered above, pulled reins to look at a big crinklehorned cow belly-deep in the damp clingy clayey sand and her six-months brindle calf the same about ten feet from her.
"Shucks," said Monte, disgusted. "I thought those old Mexs knew more'n that. Silly as those shorthorns Cal's been trying. Mighty fine mother, leading her young one astray. I ain't wading in that stuff, it could be up to my neck. How about that log we passed back there a ways?"
Ropes taut to a good-sized cottonwood limb washed from somewhere far up the wide arroyo, they stopped again by the bogged cow and calf. Dismounting, they heaved the limb, teetering on one end, and let it fall splatting out on the bar beside the terrified calf. Shovel in hand, Monte crawled out, low on the log, and began to dig. The gummy sand fought the shovel and slow curses came from him as he wrenched to free each shovelful. Sweat dripped from him as he scooped under the belly, around the legs. He had them clear, well down. He laid the shovel across two branch stubs and raised a hand high. Chet's rope, small-looped, sailed out and dropped over the hand and arm. Monte widened the loop and flipped it over the calf, and drew it snug, under the tail and forward around the chest.
"Take it away," he said.
Chet swung into saddle and tickled his horse with spurs. Wise, knowing, top-hand too, the horse eased forward and the rope tightened from the saddle horn and the horse dug hoofs in, belly low, straining in slow steady pressure. With a soft plop the six-months calf, bawling in sudden access of new terror, came free and slithered to solid ground.
"You'd think we was killing him," said Monte, "'stead of saving his fool life. Now mama won't be so easy."
She was not. They both had sessions out on the log, sweating and cursing, sliding off into the gummy stuff and scrambling back, digging around her, dodging her wicked crinkle horns when she summoned energy out of exhaustion to throw her head in panic, and both ropes were needed drawing taut to saddle horns and straining horses before she came loose with a positive loud pop. She lay limp, wild-eyed, while Monte dismounted to throw off the ropes. She staggered to her feet and h
ooked viciously at him. "Grateful, ain't she," he said, dodging and leaping for his saddle. "At least she ain't broke a leg."
Monte Walsh and Chet Rollins, mud-caked just about all over now, jogged along down the arroyo. Suddenly Monte pulled reins and Chet, ambling on, had to swing in a small circle to stop beside him.
"That calf," said Monte. "Slipped my mind fussing with the cow. It ain't branded."
"Crazy," said Chet. "You. Earmarked plain as day."
"Earmarked," said Monte. "But no brand. Must be another of those goddamned sleepers Dally found. We're shy an iron but we can use a cinch ring."
Monte Walsh and Chet Rollins jogged back up the arroyo. Suddenly Chet pulled reins and it was Monte had to swing to a stop.
"That calf," said Chet. "You certain?"
"Certain I'm certain," said Monte. "I was climbing all over him."
"It don't make sense," said Chet. "That calf was branded. I know damn well it was. I remember that cow. Only one with horns like that. I had my rope on her calf. I dragged him to the fire."
* * *
Long shadows lay over the big land. Where a side cut led out of the arroyo four horses waited, patient, ground-reined, indifferent to the low rumbling complaint of a weary crinklehorned cow roped to a small tough juniper and a brindle calf lying hog-tied forty feet from her and four men standing around it looking down.
"Find a brand on him," said Monte Walsh, "and you make me a monkey's uncle."
"That's the one," said Chet Rollins. "I had my rope on him."
"All right," said Cal Brennan. "We got that straight. Dally. See what you think."
Dally Johnson knelt by the calf. His fingers moved over its flank. They paused where tiny hairs were shorter, stiffer. He stood up. "Yes-s-s-s," he said. "I could of guessed. Our somebody wasn't missin' a trick. Hair-brandin'. Burned off the hair without singeing the hide so it'd grow back again."
Cal Brennan sighed, long and slow. "All right," he said. "Somethin' like this is what I been waitin' for. Chet. It's up to you. We're puttin' all our cards in your hand. When you slapped your rope on this one, who was handlin' the iron?"
Chet Rollins stood still, very still, head down, staring at the coiled rope in his hands. "It was kind of mixed up," he said slowly. "We was moving 'em along mighty fast. Two fires going. I was roping for one, Dobe the other. My fire, Powder was pigging and using a knife. The iron-"
Chet raised his head and looked away into distance. "Shorty," he said. "Shorty Austin."
* * *
In the early dusk of evening a patch of light and the sounds of Skimpy Eagens busy by his old cookstove came through the open doorway of the cookhouse. On the bench along the front of the dim empty bunkhouse sat nine dark shapes, hunched and silent. Over in the small corral another shape, a lean length of rawhide, moved quietly, saddling a horse and lashing a blanket roll behind the saddle.
In the old adobe ranch house, in the light of a kerosene lamp hanging from the ceiling, Cal Brennan stood by his old desk, weathered face stern in shadow. Ten feet away, back to the closed door, stood Shorty Austin, hard angular body still, upright, the flat planes of his broad rugged face full in the lamplight, rigid, expressionless. His hat was in his hands, held by the brim, and he turned it slowly, around and around.
"Shorty," said Cal. "Shorty boy. Why did you do it?"
"I still ain't talkin'," said Shorty. "I still don't know what in hell you're blattin' about."
"You been named twice," said Cal. "That's enough."
"An' who named me?" said Shorty, eyes narrowing and color beginning to seep up under the sun- and wind-tan along his jaw. "You been blattin' so damn much, maybe you'll tell me that."
"It don't matter," said Cal. "Facts named you an' they don't lie. Was there anybody in it with you?"
"In what?" said Shorty. "I'm gettin' goddamned tired of you blattin' around. You got anythin' you got to say, get it over with."
"All right, Shorty," said Cal. "I'll say it. You rode up the trail with me years back. You was a good man. A mighty good man. I picked you for my Slash Y an' you was still a good man. An' now you've let me down. Me an' the others." Cal paused. From outside he could hear the sound of hoofs approaching and stopping, then of footsteps moving away. "All right, Shorty. You tried an' you didn't get away with it. Lucky you didn't or you know what we'd have to do. You didn't an' we'll just leave it at that. Your hoss is outside. An' your gear. You're ridin' away. If I was you I'd ride a long ways. A mighty long ways. An' I wouldn't come back this way again."
Shorty's hat stopped turning in his hands. Color was high up his face now, under the tan. "My pay," he said. "Since June."
"Pay?" said Cal. "You got the gall to mention that? You ain't earned it."
Abruptly Shorty turned, reaching for the door handle, opening the door. Something in the manner of turning, in the glint of his eyes swinging away, caught at Cal.
"Shorty!" Cal's voice held him for an instant of hesitation in the doorway. "I wouldn't try it again, was I you. Not ever again."
Cal listened to hoofbeats fading away eastward. He reached up to the lamp and turned the wick down. He stood in the dimness a moment and a long sigh came from him. He moved out and down toward the dim shapes along the bunkhouse. "All right, boys," he said. "That's that."
"I got it," came the voice of Monte Walsh. "Counting you, Cal, and Skimpy, there was thirteen of us. Unlucky."
* * *
So that too was that and the days rocked along again, better, some better. But a bitterness remained, a kind of canker in the minds of the men, and with it a feeling that nothing was really finished. Shorty Austin was gone, Shorty who had been with them from the beginning, and he left a hole in the comradeship in the bunkhouse of an evening and the secret something that had been there with him the last months seemed to remain after him, hiding in the shadows of letdown after a day's work, hovering over the Slash Y like the faint felt threat of a thunderstorm just beyond the horizon.
That feeling was strongest in old Cal Brennan, not attached at first to any single nudging in his mind except perhaps the memory of a glimmer of a glint in a man's eyes. He sat on the veranda all one day, rocking slow, and his thoughts moved, slow too, but sure and to their goal. Brands. Marks burned into the hides of cow-critters to assert ownership. Once there, claims hard to disprove, at least to townbred judges and juries. And a damn nuisance, any such disproving. And never certain in a land with little law and that far off and tangled in the racial politics of a raw territory. Yes, brands. Always around again to brands. Or the lack of them. But what use would unbranded stock be to a man unless he had a brand of his own to put on them?
Or of a partner working with him?
In the morning Cal saddled his long-legged bay and he rode north all day through rugged country, skirting the westward mountains. He slept that night in an adobe shack in a little settlement called Blanca and in the morning he paid in thanks his swarthy host who would have been insulted at an offer of money and he rode westering some through more rugged country that climbed steadily and he was out on the upper level rolling toward Santa Fe and the great green monarchs of mountains beyond. In the ancient capital he found the right man and held the territorial brand book in his hands. He flipped the still few pages to the latest additions and ran a finger down these. There it was.
The name: James M. Kiens. The brand: X Y Z.
"Shorty ... Shorty boy," Cal muttered to himself. "So I was right. He got to you." Cal looked long at the brand. X Y Z. He closed the book with a soft snap. "Not missin' a trick," he muttered. "Lose out on one, try another. Just cross the Slash and add a Z."
Cal rode back the way he had come and as he jogged through the lonely miles he had plenty of time to think. He arrived at the ranch in the first dark of night and after one of Skimpy Eagens's quick catch-up meals he called Dobe Chavez and Powder Kent from the bunkhouse and talked to them in the light of the ceiling lamp in the main room of the ranch house. "Now remember," he said. "This is Slas
h Y trouble an' the Slash Y is handlin' it. But I don't want no grandstand stunts, no goin' it alone by either of you buckaroos. Anythin' happens, you bring word here."
In the morning Dobe and Powder rode out, leading two spare saddle horses and a packhorse with a light pack, southwestward across the plain and over the long ridge to the winter line camp in the first tier of foothills climbing to the mountains. They settled in and each day thereafter Dobe rode north and Powder rode south, quiet, keeping to cover, looping in long circuit through the foothills and returning by early evening. They carried rifles in their saddle scabbards and each of them, now and again as he rode, instinctive, out of old habit, pulled his side gun and spun the cylinder, checking the load.
* * *
It was Powder brought the word. He came larruping,in on a lathered horse along the middle of the afternoon of a clean sweet late September day and swung down talking fast and to the point. "Durin' the night," he said, "they cleaned that flat below the humps an' headed 'em up them arroyos into the hills. I found the tracks an' followed some to see where they was goin'. Looks like they're aimin' for that notch up by old turtletop. Five men, I'd say, though I ain't certain. I left somethin' at the cabin for Dobe which I hope he can make out an' come in like you said, Cal. An' now, by God, Cal, no matter what you say, I'm takin' a fresh hoss an' I'm ridin'."