Free Winds Blow West Read online

  “Nonsense,” chided Aunt Lucy cheerfully. “I’m quite sure Hack Asbell and his crew never intend us any harm. I’ll have to speak to Jason Spelle and tell him not to fill your head so full of fears of Hack Asbell. I sometimes grow a little impatient with Jason on that score. Why he should insist that Asbell is such an ogre, I don’t know. Certainly we’ve never been bothered.”

  “Looks like you might be tonight, ma’am,” said Bruce Martell, getting to his feet. “Unless that trail heads right next to this camp, those hooves are leading right in here.”

  This was true. There could be no mistake. That massed beat of running horses was heading straight into this camp, across the swale.

  “You see,” declared the girl. “Jason was right.”

  “They wouldn’t dare!” said Aunt Lucy spiritedly. “I’ll give them a piece of my mind—”

  “Ma’am,” said Martell, “I think it would be smart for you womenfolk to get back by the big wagon, out of the firelight. It’s a good place to argue from … the dark. If you please, ma’am.”

  He had Aunt Lucy by the arm, helping her to her feet, and he almost unceremoniously herded her and the girl back into the shadows. He used the shadows himself, then waited, alert and still.

  The pound of hooves massed to a sudden roll, and then there were a full half dozen riders swinging about the outer rim of the firelight, pulling to a milling halt, restless hooves chopping up a fine haze of dust. There was one in advance of the rest, and Martell recognized him instantly. It was Carp Bastion, the burly, intolerant foreman of the Rocking A. His eyes were stabbing the dark beyond the fire with a hot impatience, and his voice rolled, rough and arrogant.

  “Come out of that dark, sodbuster. I want a look at you. And I want a look through that wagon, too. How much slow-elking Rocking A beef have you got stashed around here? You heard me! Come out into the firelight, or I come over there after you. Hurry up!”

  Behind him, Bruce Martell heard Tracy Carling catch her breath in sharp indignation, heard a stir of movement as though either she or her aunt intended to answer Bastion’s order and move into the light. With a slow sweep of his left arm, Martell motioned them back. And so he waited, saying nothing, but poised and alert for anything.

  He’s not just sure, thought Martell. He doesn’t know how many, or who, whether men or women. And he doesn’t know whether there’s a gun looking at him. But he’s too bullheaded, too intolerant to wait and find out. He’ll be coming to see.

  This was what Martell wanted, what he was waiting for. At all odds, gunfire couldn’t be risked, not with the two women there and in the open. Besides, the setup was wrong. Out there the odds were too heavy. But if Bastion would come over—apart from the rest …

  Martell drew his gun, switched it to his left hand. And that was when Carp Bastion, full of that blistering, headlong arrogance, came over, cursing as he sent his horse plunging across the circle of firelight and into the thin dark beside the wagon.

  Chapter Four

  Swift shift from the dark into the light, then into the dark again, could play tricks with a man’s eyesight. So Bruce Martell had the advantage of being a half-guessed shadow to Carp Bastion in the brief second it took for Martell to glide in beside Bastion’s horse. And Martell’s right hand, clawing out, settled solid and sure on Bastion’s belt.

  Martell put his back into the pull and had Bastion toppling before the cowboy could set himself to resist. Bastion’s wild grab at his saddle horn missed, and the blur of surprised curses ended abruptly as he hit the ground.

  Martell dropped on him, sinking a knee into the small of Bastion’s back, and at the same time he drove the muzzle of his gun, boring against the side of Bastion’s head. Then Martell let his voice go, harsh and dominant, across the night.

  “Everybody out there stay put! I’ve got a gun against this fellow’s head, and if you want him back alive … watch yourselves!”

  After that, Martell held his breath, wondering if it was going to work. Sweat broke across his face. Those two women in back of him—if they were only somewhere else and out of line!

  The riders beyond the fire broke up the mass of their group, spinning their horses back into the full dark like a covey of startled quail, and the high, hard cry of one of them rang thin and wicked.

  “Carp! Give us the word, Carp!”

  “Give it to them,” gritted Martell, boring the muzzle of his gun savagely against Bastion’s head. “Quick! Give it. Or you can die right here!”

  Carp Bastion was raging, but that cold gun muzzle was a bitter persuader. Besides, the shock of complete surprise had broken through his arrogance, at least for the moment.

  “Wait it out … wait it out!” he yelled thickly. “Don’t start anything!”

  A few taut and deadly seconds ticked away. Then: “Carp … where are you? What the devil’s goin’ on there? Carp …?”

  “Carp’s down on the ground,” answered Martell. “He’s not hurt yet. But he will be, if anything breaks. I mean it. If you want him alive, take it slow.”

  Out in the dark, riders swore and milled helplessly, not knowing exactly what to do. But those very dangerous first moments had passed, and Bruce Martell drew a slow, deep breath of relief.

  “Listen close, Carp,” he murmured. “Like this morning, you still talk too much. But what you say now had better make sense and get results. Tell your men to be on their way to wherever they were going. Tell them if they do that, you’ll be along to join them later, no worse for wear than you are now. It’s your neck, Carp. I mean business. All right … tell ’em.”

  Carp did. No man could long occupy the position of being face down on the earth with a heavy knee in the small of his back and the muzzle of a gun against his head without realizing that, for this moment at least, he had no luck at all. So Carp, his face down, yelled muffled orders.

  “Clear out! Get goin’! I’ll meet you in town. Don’t argue. Move out!”

  “But Carp—!”

  “Damn it!” bawled Carp. “Do as you’re told. You heard me. Move out!”

  There were bewildered growls and some frustrated cursing. Then the roll of hooves moved off into the night and faded out with distance. Martell lifted Bastion’s gun, straightened up, and stepped back.

  “All right,” he rapped. “You can get up now. But mind your manners and lay off that cussing. There are ladies around.”

  Bastion got to his feet and, at gun muzzle, Martell urged him out into the firelight, where the Rocking A foreman twisted his head and got his first look at Martell. His eyes congested with rage.

  “You!” he exploded thickly. “You … again! The second time you’ve mauled me out of my saddle. You—!”

  “Careful, Carp. Mind your language. Yeah, me again. Monotonous, I know. But you will barge into things. I don’t enjoy the chore of hauling you around like a sack of wheat, myself. But it seems you just won’t learn. Now cool off and talk sense. Just what was your real business in barging into this camp, full of bullyrag and noise?”

  “You heard me say why when I first rode in!” exploded the raging but helpless cowboy. “I’m lookin’ for slow-elked Rockin’ A beef. With your own eyes you saw four Rockin’ A beef that had been slow-elked. Well, I’m lookin’ for that meat, and I intend to find it if I have to search every sodbuster wagon from here to the Selkirks. Now you know!”

  “Asbell’s orders?” prodded Martell.

  Carp Bastion’s hesitation was slight but unmistakable. “That’s neither here or there, and in some things a man don’t need any orders. I’m Rockin’ A. The other boys are Rockin’ A. We look after Rockin’ A affairs.”

  “You’re doing a poor job of it,” Martell declared bluntly. “You’re hurting more than helping with this sort of business. Use you head, man. You can’t bully five hundred settlers. But you can lose your neck trying.”

  “When I need adv
ice from you, I’ll let you know,” said Bastion sullenly. “And here’s something you better understand, right here and now. From now on you’re open game as far as Rockin’ A is concerned. And you and me—just the two of us—well, that’s a chunk of future business apart from all the other business. Maybe you’re good, maybe you’re just lucky. One of these days I expect to find out.”

  “We won’t worry about that just now,” Martell drawled calmly. “Right now, though, here’s some advice you better take, whether you like it or not. This particular settler camp is definitely off bounds for Rocking A. Very fine folks, these. Friends of mine. You come bothering them again, and that piece of business between you and me that you just spoke of will explode and rain down all over you. Look me in the eye, man.”

  These last words had a snap to them. Carp looked, and what he saw made him blink and shift uncomfortably. He mumbled, “How long you keepin’ me here?”

  “Not long. Miss Carling, would you bring the gentleman’s horse over here, please?”

  Bastion’s horse, after losing its rider so unceremoniously, had swung and backed nervously away, reins trailing. But the girl had no trouble now in catching it and leading it over to the fire. A glance told Martell all he wanted. There was no saddle weapon of any sort. He jerked the shells from Bastion’s belt gun and handed it to the burly, but now subdued, cowboy.

  “All right, Carp,” he said. “You can pull out.”

  Bastion went into his saddle, then looked down at Martell. “What the devil kind of man are you?” he burst out. “The marks of a lifelong saddle man are on you, yet here you are hanging out in a sodbuster camp, and standin’ up for them.”

  “It could be the people, Carp,” drawled Martell. “You ought to know them better. Broaden you, maybe.”

  Bastion swung his head, as though unable to understand. There was nothing flexible in Bastion’s reasoning. His code was simple enough. The cattleman was king. His world was a cattleman’s world. There was little place in it for anything else, and definitely no place for a sodbuster. His hate for the man with a plow was as ancient as the cattle business itself. He would have spurred away then, but Aunt Lucy appeared suddenly beside Martell.

  “Have I ever harmed you?” she asked Carp Bastion quietly.

  He looked at her, at the soft order of her whitening hair, at the grave, kindly simplicity in her eyes and face. And he swung restlessly in his saddle.

  “No, ma’am,” he blurted awkwardly, “reckon you never did. Yet—”

  “Yet I’m a sodbuster, as you call us settlers,” cut in Aunt Lucy. “I’m no different than the rest.”

  Carp Bastion was out of his depth. He didn’t know what to say. Under the calm serenity of this graying woman’s glance he felt cornered and at a loss for words to get out of this thing gracefully.

  “You have my word for one thing,” said Aunt Lucy. “There is no stolen Rocking A beef in this camp, and there never will be. My niece, my husband, and myself … we are respectable people. We have no quarrel with anyone, least of all with Mister Asbell and the Rocking A. You believe me, don’t you?”

  “Yes’m,” mumbled Carp Bastion. “Yes’m. I reckon I do.” In desperation, he set spurs to his horse and tore away through the night.

  Martell reached for his smoking. “I think,” he said quietly, “that Carp will be a better man after tonight. You’ve started him thinking, ma’am.”

  “I … I hope so,” said Aunt Lucy. She dropped a hand on Martell’s arm, let out a little shaky sigh. “I was frightened half to death, for a moment there.”

  “So was I,” agreed Martell. “I kept thinking of you womenfolk. It wasn’t very pretty, the way I played it. But there didn’t seem any other way. Carp, in his saddle, with his men behind him … that was one thing that talk or argument wouldn’t have done a thing against. And even if I’d thrown a gun, then it wouldn’t have done any good. They’d have taken a chance with their numbers. So I had to get Carp away from the rest and then work fast. But it worked out all right.” He looked down at Aunt Lucy with his slow, warming smile.

  “It was our good fortune that Tracy brought you into camp,” she said simply. “Thank you, Bruce Martell.”

  The girl was standing by the fire, looking at Martell, yet not looking at him. That was the way Martell felt. It was something he couldn’t put into words, the way she was looking at him without putting her eyes directly on him.

  “Violence seems to come your way no matter where you ride or where you stop, doesn’t it?” she said.

  Martell’s smile lingered. “It’s been what you might call a full day,” he admitted dryly.

  “You and that man … you’d met before?”

  “This morning.” Martell nodded. “Back at the scene of the slow-elking.”

  “And you had trouble with him then?”

  This Tracy Carling, thought Martell, was keen as a knife blade. She hadn’t missed a word of what had passed between him and Carp. “We argued a mite,” he admitted.

  “And so there must be a third meeting,” she said gravely. “He promised that, didn’t he? And that will be … what?”

  The gravity of Martell’s face came back. “Probably nothing at all. I think we’re beginning to understand each other, Carp and me. He’s not a bad sort. Knowing him better, I might like him. And tomorrow is another day. I never bother trouble.”

  They settled down about the fire again. Now the stars were out in their full tide, whitening the sky above, shining a deceptive silver sheen over the wide and resting world beneath. A little breeze stirred, rustling close to the earth, frightening the fire flames until they bent and dodged and wove, then running on to other mild deviltry. It carried a freshness with it, and the smell of space.

  Again the night brought the sound of hooves, slowly moving this time, and bringing no trouble. It was Ezra Banks, riding Martell’s big black gelding. The gaunt settler swung down.

  “Your horse, like I promised,” he said to Martell in his deep, slow way. “And a good ’un. Even-minded and soft ridin’. Too good a bronc’ to be left stranded in town because you went and got yourself mixed up in a row with them no-good Thorpe brothers.”

  “I knew it!” exclaimed Aunt Lucy. “I knew it would be the Thorpes who started the trouble with Mister Martell. You heard about it in town, Ezra?”

  “I reckon, Lucy Carling. But from all accounts, right about now them Thorpes are wishin’ they hadn’t. Bully Thorpe, he’s nursin’ a face half-caved in from a beer bottle. And Dyke Thorpe, he ain’t in much better shape, but swearin’ he won’t miss with his knife, next time. And Whip Thorpe, well, he ain’t as bad messed up as the others, but he’s got marks that won’t wear off for a day or two. I’d say that for a couple of weeks at least the world will be free of their cussedness.”

  Bruce Martell had stepped past Ezra Banks while the gaunt settler was talking, eager to touch and speak to his horse again. The black greeted him with a little nicker, rubbed its head against his shoulder. Martell petted the animal a moment, then turned to Ezra Banks.

  “If you’ll accept them from a saddle man, old-timer … I’m offering you my thanks.”

  Ezra Banks cleared his throat. “Humph! You’re welcome. But I’da felt kinda put on about, if you hadn’t handled them Thorpes as well as you did. Yeah, you’re welcome.”

  The fire had begun to shrink toward coals. Ezra Banks dropped on his gaunt heels beside it, spread gnarled hands across the warmth, for a slight chill had begun to let down across the night. He twisted his head toward Martell.

  “When you and Miss Tracy come by this evenin’, you said you were tryin’ to locate a brother in this basin, Martell. You got any idee at all where to look?”

  “None at all,” Martell told him. “If I had, I wouldn’t have been prowling here and yon, bumping into trouble.”

  Ezra Banks stared at the ruby coals. “Never heard the
name Martell before, so I reckon I can’t help you there.”

  “He’s with a man named Clebourne … Jeff Clebourne.”

  Ezra’s head jerked up. “Jeff Clebourne? Well, now … that’s different. I know Jeff Clebourne. Met him back on War Lance Creek before the jump-off. Had a young feller with him, drivin’ his second wagon. Jest a sprig, curly-headed. Allus on the go, this young feller was, restless as a colt in spring sunshine. Seems I remember Jeff callin’ him Kit or …”

  “Kip?” put in Martell.

  “That’s it. Kip. That your brother?”

  “Right. You know where Clebourne set his stakes, old-timer?”

  “Not exactly, but I got a general idee. Jeff Clebourne, he’d had a look at this basin. When the word first got out that the government was considerin’ openin’ Indio Basin for settlement, Jeff made a trip in here to sorta prospect the land. Back on War Lance Creek he told me he kinda liked the looks of a piece somewhere along the south bank of the Hayfork River, along the west reach of it. So I calculate that’s where Jeff headed. You hit the river and foller it west and you might have luck.”

  “My luck was in meeting up with people like you and the Carlings, Ezra.”

  The gaunt settler got to his feet, prepared to head back to his own camp. “Should you meet up with Hack Asbell, see can you persuade the ornery old buzzard that at least some of us is fair-to-middlin’ decent folks. Mebbe he’ll leave us alone, then. ’Night, Lucy … Tracy, girl. Iffen Brink needs help to unload when he gits in, tell him to holler. See you again, Martell.”

  Ezra Banks plodded off into the dark.

  Martell turned to the womenfolk. “For everything, thanks again,” he said gravely. “Maybe the time will come when I’ll have a chance to return some of your kindness.”

  “Oh!” exclaimed Aunt Lucy, “but you’re not going to ride any farther tonight, are you? Put the idea right out of your mind, sir. You camp right here by this fire. Tracy and I will both sleep better for knowing there’s a man around. You go tend to your horse and we’ll get some blankets from the wagon for you. Tomorrow is plenty of time to go on after your brother.”