Ten days from the evening Tex Matthews died in the frozen bed of a
lonely creek Robin rode again in the Bad Lands, this time alone. No
one knew whither he went, nor why. He scarcely knew himself. If he
could have embodied his feelings in words he would have said that he
could not rest quietly under circumstances that drew about him like
the crushing coil of a python, a dread thing which he could neither
combat nor fly from. Sometimes a curious fear stirred in his heart,
and again--when he thought of Tex--a resentful ache. His world was
all askew. There was no faith nor honor nor even justice. Thieves
flourished and murder went unchallenged.
“Shot to death by some person or persons unknown.”
That perfunctory verdict echoed in Robin’s ears like a damnable
irony as he pulled up his horse once more in the pines which bounded
the corral and cabins he and Tex had discovered. Robin knew those
“persons unknown.” But a moral certainty does not establish guilt
before the law.
He shivered a little, recalling that day and hour. He had lain on
the edge of the washout with a dead man below him and he had prayed
that the killers would show themselves. But nothing save a few
cattle startled by the shots moved in that lonely place. He had lain
until his fingers numbed and his body grew stiff with the cold,
until the dark shut down. Then he had lashed the Texan’s corpse
across his blood-stained saddle and groped his way out of the Bad
Lands, rode the long night through leading a tired horse with a
ghastly burden that had been a man.
Here he was again, urged against all reasoned judgment into the
enemy’s territory. Robin was no fool to discount the chances he
took. He had no plan. He trusted to luck. He would ride warily as a
scalping Indian as long as the food in his saddlebags lasted. If
only he could get something definite to go on--or better still if he
could drop those two red-handed in their predatory activities. Given
a crew of riders and two weeks Robin knew that a round-up of T Bar S
cattle would show that their number had trebled in a twelvemonth.
Nothing less than positive proof would shake Adam Sutherland’s
fatuous belief in the integrity of his range boss.
Probably, in the end, Robin thought, he would have to kill Mark
Steele--if Mark didn’t beat him to that outcome. Perhaps deep in
Robin’s breast lurked the savage desire to stake all on an encounter
and so end uncertainty. A man cannot always fathom his own motives.
Still, in spite of the indignities Shining Mark had heaped upon him,
a festering sore in his mind, and Matthews’ slaying added to the
ugly total, Robin was not there for bushwhacking, but to learn if
indeed Thatcher and Steele did use that lonely corral and for what
purpose.
He viewed it now from the concealment of the timber. He had
approached the place cautiously riding in a wide circle around it on
high ground. A three-inch layer of new snow blanketed the earth. No
track led in or out from the place. Robin turned away and bore off
toward the river.
He made camp in a gulch at dusk. During the next day he jogged in
and out of various bottoms, flats in which both with Mayne and Tex
he had noted scores of Block S cows with their unbranded calves. The
cows were there still. The calves were gone. Robin rode far and
looked closely. The clean-up had been made. But where were the
calves? Robin stared across the frozen reach of the Missouri and
guessed the answer. He marked herd after herd of grazing cattle with
never a sign of fresh iron work, nor a single unbranded calf. He
would rest his hands on his saddle horn and ponder. Where would _he_
dispose of a hundred-odd fresh branded yearlings if he were a cow
thief.
Psychology to Robin was no more than a term occasionally encountered
in his last year of a frontier grammar school, a word lightly taken
and soon forgotten. But he knew his people and his time. And he had
imagination, that penetrating vision which is at once a curse and a
blessing to its possessor. He could put himself in another man’s
shoes.
So he looked south of the river. In the end he crossed, leading a
trembling horse that slipped and slid and once or twice fell on the
glaring ice.
From far below Boiler Bottom he rode westward on the Judith Basin
side, in a region where no man lived. He passed the mouth of
Armells, Arrow Creek, other small, nameless streams. He rode in
still, wide-floored canyons where cattle grazed, over benches, back
to the river flats again, looking, looking. He ate the last of his
food. He slept like a wild animal in the lee of a bank or a brush
patch, he dozed over little sagewood fires. And he came out at last
near the mouth of the Judith River opposite where Birch Creek flowed
in from the Bear Paws.
He was hungry and weary. The frost had touched his cheeks, for the
thermometer at night dropped to twenty below. The range lay hard and
wan under a bright moon, and glittered in the midday sun. But Robin
was content to endure. He had found much that he desired to find. If
he could only establish Mark Steele’s interest in the T Bar S brand
he knew he could make good his word and put Mark Steele in the
penitentiary.
Thus Robin as he looked to the homeward side of the big river. In
all the jumbled area behind him no man rode in the dead of winter.
The Judith Basin cow outfits had their home ranches far south in a
creek and meadow country. The cattle that ranged where he had been
would see no riders before the spring round-up. The PN on the Judith
a few miles above was the only habitation within a hard day’s ride
of where he stood--south of the river. Robin was tempted to ride to
the PN to eat warm food, to sleep in a bed once more.
But there was also the urge for home. Directly across from him a
little way up Birch the Block S had a line camp. Two riders held it
down, as much to keep the men occupied as for aught they could do
for the Sutherland interest in winter. Robin knew both riders
stationed there. He could lie over an hour, get something to eat,
reach home by dark. He had not eaten in twenty hours. His mouth
watered at the mere thought of hot coffee.
The chance of Shining Mark turning up there was remote. Robin knew
why Mark and Thatcher kept to the lower end of the Block S range. In
any case, as he rode up Birch Creek, he must pass this camp. And he
would never again step aside an inch for Mark Steele or any other
man. Something of the hardness of the winter frosts seemed to be
creeping into Robin’s soul.
An hour later he rode through sagebrush that reached to his knees
and came to a cabin and a stable in one corner of a small pasture
fenced with poles. Smoke wavered from a pipe. Two saddled horses
stood before the door. A head thrust out as Robin drew rein.
“Hello, cowboy,” Ed Doyle greeted. “You lost, or just goin’ some
place?”
“Neither,” Robin returned. “Been some place, that’s all.”
“Well, get down an’ rest your saddle,” Doyle invited.
Robin got stiffly down. Doyle’s red-headed companion took a shrewd
look at Robin and his mount.
“Better put that _caballo_ in the stable so he can eat as well as
you,” he said. “You look like you’d been ’round the Horn.”
“Mark Steele ain’t floatin’ around by any chance, is he?”
A brief glance telegraphed between the two Block S men. Robin could
interpret that. They thought he was out for Steele.
“Naw,” Bud Cartwright said. “He ain’t been here but once this fall.
You’d be more likely to locate him down around Cow Creek from what I
hear.”
“I sure don’t hanker to locate him right now,” Robin smiled. “I’d
rather locate a cup of hot coffee than anything I know.”
“Got your order,” Bud grinned. “She’s still steamin’ on the stove.
There’s biscuits and a hunk of fried beef. Fly at it, Robin. We’re
fed. Got to take a swing over toward Chip Creek. Make yourself at
home.”
Robin stabled his mount. When he came back to the house the other
two were in the saddle.
“We’ll be back somewhere between now an’ dark,” Doyle said. “Keep
the fire goin’, kid.”
“I will if I stay,” Robin agreed. “I ain’t sure I will. Kinda like
to get home. See how I feel after I’ve got some grub under my belt.”
“Well, the house is yours,” Bud drawled. “So long.”
Robin stirred up the fire, ate like a famished wolf. He was weary to
the innermost core. For five days he had only taken off his boots to
warm his feet for an hour or so by the fire. His bones ached from
sleeping on frozen ground. With a full stomach he drew up to the
stove, rested his stockinged feet on the hearth, sat there smoking,
debating whether he should stay or ride on.
The warmth of the room wrapped him like a comfortable garment. His
eyelids drooped. His chin sank on his breast.
He came out of that doze with a start, with a sensation of having
been disturbed, with a strange intuition of a presence in the room
besides himself. He became aware of his pistol scabbard empty on his
hip. For a breath he tried to recall if he had laid the gun aside.
Then, his head turning slowly to verify that warning intuition of
personal nearness to something, he saw Mark Steele and Thatcher
standing between him and the door.
Steele had Robin’s Colt in his hand. He was smiling, with a faint
curl of his upper lip. Thatcher grinned with a satisfaction that
sent a ripple along Robin’s back.
He didn’t speak. He looked at them silently. His tongue was not
numbed, nor his brain. But there was nothing to say. They had him
cornered, disarmed. What would they do? He canvassed the
possibilities in a detached, impersonal fashion.
Steele broke the silence at last. He backed up a step, seated
himself on the edge of the table, dangled one foot so that the
silver spur tinkled. His eyes never left Robin. They were cold and
gray, unlighted by any feeling--except it might be a touch of
calculation. He laid Robin’s six-shooter beside him.
“Well, Mr. Tyler of the Bar M Bar,” said he, “the last time we
talked you said you were goin’ to put me in the pen. How about it?
You got out a warrant for my arrest yet?”
Robin did not answer.
“Too scared to talk?” Steele taunted.
Robin’s answer was a shrug of his shoulders. A shadow flitted across
Steele’s dark face.
“I’ll make you talk,” he gritted. “Here, Tommy, you take the horses
to the stable,” he ordered. “Unsaddle ’em. Shut the door when you go
out, so the cold air won’t bother Mr. Tyler. His feet are chilly
now.”
Thatcher glanced from Robin to Steele, back to Robin again. His
brows crinkled a little. He seemed uncertain. But he went out
without a word.
“Now, darn your hide,” Mark’s tone was acid. “I hate to mess up a
nice clean cabin, but you’ve bothered me long enough.”
His fingers closed on the grip of his belt gun.
“You’ve bothered me long enough you -- -- --!” he snarled. “You hear
me?”
Through Robin’s mind flashed the thought that deadly as Steele was
he could not quite cold-bloodedly shoot down a man who sat in a
chair and stared dumbly at him. Hence the vile epithets. Mark had to
stir him up--or work himself up. Robin faced slowly about on the
chair.
“I hear you,” he said quietly. “Go ahead, shoot. You’ll be proud of
yourself after you’ve put out my light. You’re a powerful brave man,
Steele.”
Robin said that casually, for all his heart was beating
double-quick. Whether he rose to Steele’s taunting or not the man
would kill him. Intention, determination, were explicit on Shining
Mark’s face, in his stony stare, the slow withdrawal of his gun from
its scabbard. Robin was a menace Steele must remove for his own
safety. That cold feeling went over Robin again in a wave.
But all the time his stockinged toes were pressing harder and harder
into the dirt floor, the muscles of his legs were tensing. At least
he would not die like a tame sheep, bleating for mercy where there
was no mercy.
And when the gun leaped clear with a sudden jerk, as if Steele had
made up his mind to get the job done, Robin leaped also.
Shining Mark had made the mistake of staying too close, of
miscalculating the distance an active man could hurl himself with
the speed of a winking eyelid, when moved by a desperate resolve.
Robin did not strike. He clutched with both hands for that gun,
thrust it aside. Mark Steele was a strong and active man himself.
For a few seconds they struggled. Robin clamped both hands over the
gun, turning it back on Mark, jammed him against the wall. He was
the heavier, the stronger of the two, but he could not tear loose
the weapon from Steele’s grip. To loose one hand and strike was
dangerous. To let go and stoop for his own weapon now fallen to the
floor meant that Steele would kill him as he stooped. Any moment
Thatcher might enter. Then of a surety he was a dead man. And it was
more fitting Robin felt, with a fury that burned him, that Steele or
Thatcher, or both, should die if death was to stalk in that camp.
Slowly he turned the muzzle back toward Steele. One of his fingers
slipped inside the trigger guard. His thumb hooked around the curved
hammer. He jabbed Steele suddenly with one knee, and in the
momentary relaxation of the man’s grip Robin managed to pull the
trigger.
The report of the .45 was like a cannon blast in the room. Shining
Mark let go, left the gun in Robin’s hand. His fingers fumbled at
the base of his throat. Then he sagged and weaved and his knees
doubled under him. He became a sprawling figure face to the floor,
with strange spasmodic twitching of his outstretched fingers.
Robin retrieved his own gun. His rifle stood by the wall. He picked
the Winchester up. There was still another snake to scotch. Like a
wolf at bay or a tiger in the circle of beaters pure savagery was
driving Robin now. Every primitive instinct buried deep in man was
on top. He opened the door. For the moment, rifle in hand, with that
dark rage upon him, Robin would have faced all the fiends of hell
itself--and Thatcher was only a man.
The Texan was walking rapidly toward the house. In Robin’s seething
brain the thought arose: “They knew I was here. They followed me. He
thinks Mark has downed me.”
He stepped, scarcely conscious of his stocking feet, out into the
snow. As the foresight of his rifle lined on the Texan’s breast,
Thatcher stopped dead in his tracks, flung both arms high in the
air. Robin held his fire. Ripe to kill as he was he couldn’t shoot.
He walked toward the Texan, the anger dying out of him like a
receding tide. But for all that he cursed the man, slapped him
brutally, raged at him with tears in his voice, disarmed him and
drove him into the house. Thatcher grew pale at sight of his
confederate stretched on the floor.
Then Robin stood still to collect his thoughts. He beheld himself
yet between the devil and the deep sea. He had killed the Block S
wagon boss as he had publicly declared he would. Adam Sutherland
would remember that.
“Turn your face to the wall,” he commanded Thatcher.
“Kid, for God’s sake!”
“You dirty dog!” Robin gritted. “_I_ don’t murder men from ambush,
nor shoot ’em in the back. You do what I say.”
Thatcher obeyed. Robin took a piece of clothesline and tied his
wrists tightly, backed him up to a bunk nailed to the wall and
lashed him securely to a corner of that. Then he put on his boots,
his overcoat, took both their guns and shut the cabin door on the
prisoner and the dead.
He saddled his own horse, turned out the other two, hastened their
going with a flicking rope-end. In half an hour he would be on the
high benches. Until Bud Cartwright and Ed Doyle returned he was safe
from pursuit--probably longer. He knew Doyle and Cartwright. They
would not hasten to sound an alarm over any one killing Shining
Mark.
He mounted and loped away up Birch Creek straight for the Bar M Bar.