“This here country has to have a boss of some kind,” says “Navajo,” pouring me a drink. “Ain’t no law here, and somebody’s got to kinda run things. I ain’t no saint, but I’m a lot better man than Swag McBride. If you don’t believe it, go ask the citizens of Piute. Man’s life is safe here with me runnin’ things, long’s he keeps his nose outa my business, and a woman can walk down the street without bein’ insulted by some tough. Honest to gosh, if I was to tell you some of the things McBride and his devils has pulled—”
“Things looks peaceful enough now,” I admitted.
“They are, while I’m in the saddle,” says Beldon. “Say, how would you like to work for me?”
“Doin’ what?” I ask.
“Well,” he says, “I got considerable cattle, besides my interests in Piute. These men you see here ain’t all the boys I got workin’ for me, of course. They’s a bunch now down near Eagle River, drivin’ a herd up from the border, which ain’t so terrible far from you, you know.”
“You buy cattle in Mexico?” I ask.
“Well,” he says, “I gets quite a lot of steers from across the line. I has to have men watchin’ all the time to keep them greasers from comin’ over and stealin’ everything I got. What’s that?”
Outside come a thunder of hoofs and a voice yelled, “Beldon! Beldon!”
“Who’s that?” demanded Beldon, scrambling up and grabbing his gun.
“It’s Richards!” called one of the men, looking out of the winder with a rifle. “He’s foggin’ it up the south trail like the devil was ridin’ behind him.”
Beldon started lumbering toward the door, but about that time the horse slid to a gravel-scattering halt at the edge of the porch, and a man come storming in, all plastered with sweat and dust.
“What’s eatin’ you, Richards?” demanded Navajo.
“The greasers!” yelped Richards. “Early this mornin’ we run a herd of Diego Gonzales’ cattle across the line, and you know what happened? We hadn’t hardly more’n got back across the border when his blame vaqueros overtook us and shot up every man except me, and run them steers back home again!”
“What?” bellered Navajo, with his mustaches quivering in righteous wrath. “Why, them thievin’, yeller polecats! Ain’t they got no respect for law and order? What air we a-comin’ to? Ain’t they no honest men left besides me? Does they think they can treat me like that? Does they think we’re in the the cow business for our health? Does they think they can tromple on us after we’ve went to the trouble and expense of stealin’ them steers ourselves?
“Donnelly, take your men and light out! I’ll show them greasers they can’t steal my critters and get away with it. You fetch them cows back if you have to foller ’em right into Diego’s patio—blast his thievin’ soul!”
The feller he called Donnelly got up and told his men to come on, and they took a drink at the bar, and drawed up their gun belts and went stomping out toward the hitching rack. Richards went along to guide ’em.
“Don’t you wanta go?” says Navajo to me, still snorting with his indignation. “The boys may need help, and I can tell from the way you wear your guns that you know how to handle ’em. I’ll pay you well.”
Well, if they is anything I despises it’s a darned thief, so I told Beldon I’d go along and help recover his property. I left him bellering his grievances to the bald-headed old bartender and his Mexican boy helper, which was all that was left in the saloon.
* * * * *
Richards had changed his saddle onto a fresh horse, and as we rode off I looked at the horse which he’d rode in. It was a pinto and it seemed to me like I’d saw it somewheres but I couldn’t remember. It was so sweaty and dusty it was mighty near disguised.
We headed south along the dusty trail, nine or ten of us, Richards leading, and was soon out of sight of Piute. Them fellers was riding like Mexico was right over the next rise, but the miles went past, and I decided they was just reckless, damn fools. I kept trying to remember where I’d seen that pinto of Richards’, and all of a sudden I remembered.
The trail dipped ahead of us down into a tangle of cliffs and canyons, and Richards had drawed ahead of the rest of us. He turned to motion us to hurry, and as he turned, the sun flashed from the silver trappings on his saddle and bridle, and, like a shot, I remembered—I remembered where I’d seen them trappings, and where I’d seen that pinto. It was the horse I’d saw tied near them big rocks away to the east of Piute.
I involuntarily sat brother Bill’s horse back on his haunches. The rest of the gang swept on without noticing, but I sat there and thunk. If Richards was with that gang east, how could he be with the bunch driving cattle acrost the border away to the south of Piute? He come up the south trail into Piute, but what was to prevent him from cutting through the hills and hitting that trail just below the town? Richards had lied to Beldon; and Beldon had said that if a man wasn’t for him, he was for McBride.
I reined up onto a knob, and stared off eastward, and pretty soon I seen what I expected to see—a fog of rolling dust, sweeping from southeast to northwest—toward Piute. I knowed what was raising that dust: men on horses, riding hard.
I looked south for Donnelly and his men. They was just passing out of sight in a big notch with sheer walls on each side. I yelled but they didn’t hear me. Richards had pulled ahead of them by a hundred yards, and was already through the notch and out of sight. They all thundered into the notch and passed out of sight. And then it sounded like all the guns in southern Arizona let go at once. I wheeled and rode for Piute as hard as brother Bill’s horse could leg it.
The dust on the horizon disappeared behind a big boulder that jutted right up into the sky. Then, after a while, ahead of me, I heard a sudden crackle of gunfire, and what sounded like a woman screaming, and then everything was still again.
Ahead of me the trail made the bend that would bring me in sight of Piute. I left the trail and took to the thickets. Brother Bill’s horse was snorting and trembling, nigh done in. The town was awful quiet—not a soul in sight, and all the doors closed. I circled the flat, tied Bill’s horse in a thicket back of the saloon, and stole toward the back door, with my guns in my hands.
They wasn’t no horses tied at the hitching rack. Everything was awful quiet except for the flies buzzing around the blood puddles on the floor. The old bartender was laying across the bar with a gun still in his hand. He’d stopped plenty lead. His Mexican boy was slumped down near the door with his head split open—looked like he’d been hit with an ax. A stranger I’d never saw was stretched out in the dust before the porch, with a bullet hole in his skull. He was a tall, dark, hard-looking cuss. A gun with one empty chamber was laying nigh his right hand.
I believed they’d captured Navajo Beldon alive. His carcass wasn’t nowhere to be seen, and then the tables and chairs was all busted, just like I figgered they’d be after a gang of men had hog tied Beldon. That would be a job that’d wreck any saloon. They was empty cartridges and a broke knife on the floor, and buttons tore offa fellers’ shirts, and a smashed hat, and a notebook, like things gets scattered during a free for all.
I picked up the notebook and on the top of the first page was wrote, “Swag McBride owes me $100 for that there job over to Braxton’s ranch.”
I stuck it in my pocket but I didn’t need no evidence to know who’d raided Piute.
* * * * *
I looked out cautious into the town. Nobody in sight and all doors and winders closed. Then come a sudden rumble of horses’ hoofs and I jumped back out of the doorway and looked through a winder. Seven horsemen swept into the village out of a trail that wound up through the thickets back of the town; but they didn’t stop.