Mankiller, Colorado

CHAPTER 2

Before anybody could slap leather, one of Ridley’s men spoke up, saying, “Somebody comin’ over yonder, boss.”

He was looking back to the east, behind Bo and Scratch, and for a second Bo thought it was just a trick to get the two of them to turn around so Ridley’s gun hawks could get the drop on them.

But then Bo heard the distant pounding of hoof-beats.

“Hold it,” Ridley snapped to his men. “Don’t start anything. Not until we find out who that is.”

Bo had a hunch who the newcomers were. They were coming from the direction of Circle JP headquarters, so in all likelihood they were some of Big John Peeler’s men.

That turned out to be the case. After a couple of tense minutes, eight riders led by Joe Archibald swept up. Big John ramrodded his own crew, but Archibald was his segundo and gave all the orders that Peeler didn’t.

“What the hell’s going on here?” he demanded of Bo and Scratch, unwittingly echoing what Ridley had said a few minutes earlier.

Scratch nodded toward the rival rancher. “Mr. Ridley here’s got a problem with this fence Big John told us to put up, Joe.”

“Of course I’ve got a problem,” Ridley said. “The damn fence is on my range!”

Archibald looked toward the hills, then turned his head to gaze toward the line of mesas. Then he faced Ridley again and said, “Looks like it’s in the right place to me.”

“It’s half a mile too far west!”

“A minute ago you said a thousand yards,” Scratch said, drawing a murderous glower from Ridley.

Archibald leaned forward slightly in his saddle and said, “This fence is stayin’ right here, Ridley…unless you think four against eight is good odds for an argument.”

Ridley’s face turned an even darker, mottled shade of red, but before he could say anything, Bo spoke up.

“Wait a minute, Archibald. This is between Ridley and his men, and Scratch and me. We’re the ones he came up to and started bellowing at and ordering around.”

Under his breath, Scratch said, “Bo, what’re you doin’?”

Bo ignored his old friend’s question. “If anybody settles this, it ought to be Scratch and me.”

Archibald grunted. “Is that so? Have you gone loco, Creel? They outnumber you two to one.”

“We’ve faced long odds before, haven’t we, Scratch?”

“Yeah, but not when we didn’t have to. Dang it, Bo, what’s got into you?”

“I just think we ought to fight our own fights—”

Archibald sent his horse forward, and the men with him followed suit. They bulled past Bo and Scratch to face Ridley and his men across the fence line.

“You two saddle tramps just stay out of this,” Archibald snapped. “This is between Ridley’s bunch and ours, and anyway, you’re too old to be gettin’ mixed up in ruckuses like this. Just stay out of the way.”

Bo’s jaw clamped tight. His breath hissed between his teeth. Scratch watched him with a worried frown.

Ridley shook a finger at Archibald. “This isn’t over!” he blustered. “There’ll be another day, Archibald. And tell Peeler that this damned fence won’t stand, either!”

“Tell him your own damned self if you want to come callin’,” Archibald said.

Ridley spun his horse around and jabbed his spurs cruelly into its flanks. He galloped away, back toward his ranch headquarters, with his men following him.

Archibald watched them go for a moment, then turned to the men with him. “All right,” he said. “I want this fence finished today, so you’re all gonna work on it.”

“Mr. Peeler gave that job to us,” Bo protested.

“Well, you ain’t gonna get it done quick enough. You and Morton can still help, but we’ll finish it. Then we can have men ridin’ patrol on it all the time to make sure Ridley doesn’t try anything.”

Scratch touched his old friend’s arm. “Come on, Bo. Look at it like this—at least we don’t have to work out here in the hot sun all day by ourselves.”

“Yeah,” Bo said with bitter cynicism in his voice. “Aren’t we lucky?”

No cowboy enjoyed stringing wire, so there was plenty of complaining going on as the men set to work, but nobody was going to contradict Archibald’s orders. And, Bo had to admit, with ten men working instead of two, the fence went up a lot quicker. It would have taken him and Scratch days to string the wire across the valley by themselves. With the other men pitching in, the job could be done in a day, as Archibald had commanded.

As the day went on, a sneaking suspicion began to lurk in the back of Bo’s mind. It seemed to him like Archibald and the other men had shown up awfully conveniently. Maybe Peeler had sent him and Scratch out by themselves as bait of a sort, to find out if Ridley was keeping an eye on the valley. Archibald could have followed them, with orders to step in if Ridley showed up at the fence line. Forcing Ridley to back down was just the sort of slap in the face that Big John would enjoy dealing out to his rival.

By late afternoon, the fence was finished. Archibald told a couple of the men to stay there and patrol the length of it until he got back to headquarters and sent some relief out to them. Then he said, “Creel, you and Morton load up the wire that’s left and take the wagon back.”

Bo looked up at the segundo, who was mounted again, and said, “Listen, Joe, did the boss set this up just to get Ridley’s goat?”

Archibald frowned at him. “What are you talkin’ about?”

“I thought Big John and Ridley had agreed about putting up a fence and where it was supposed to be.”

“It’s supposed to be right here where it is. If you got a problem with that, Creel, maybe you better draw your time and ride on.”

“Now, hold on,” Scratch said. “We don’t want to go jumpin’ to no conclusions such as that. I reckon Bo was just a mite curious, that’s all.”

“It don’t pay to be curious when you ain’t in charge of anything.” Archibald wheeled his horse. “Get that wagon back to the ranch before dark!”

He and the others rode away, including the two men who would ride along the fence line to guard it, leaving Bo and Scratch to finish loading the wagon.

“Who put a burr under your saddle?” Scratch asked as he shrugged into his shirt and started to button it. “I’m usually the hotheaded one who goes off half-cocked and gets us into trouble.”

“I don’t know,” Bo replied with a shake of his head. “I’ve just got a feeling that something’s not right here. Like maybe Big John’s just using us.”

“Well, of course he’s usin’ us. He’s payin’ our wages, ain’t he?”

“That’s not what I mean.”

“When you figure out what you do mean, be sure and let me know. In the meantime, try actin’ more like the Bo Creel I been ridin’ with for all these many years, and not like me.”

Bo managed a grin. “Yeah, we wouldn’t want that.”

They threw a partially used roll of wire into the back of the wagon, along with a small stack of fence posts they’d wound up not needing. Then they climbed onto the seat and Bo took up the reins, slapping them against the backs of the two horses hitched to the wagon. The team started toward Circle JP headquarters in a plodding walk.

The sun was almost down when the wagon rolled up to the largest of the three barns scattered around the ranch. An elderly cowhand who was too stove up to ride the range anymore came out and took charge of the team. Bo and Scratch climbed down from the seat, and Scratch started toward the bunkhouse, going several yards before he realized that Bo wasn’t with him.

Frowning, Scratch turned and saw that Bo was striding resolutely toward the sprawling, two-story, whitewashed house where Big John Peeler lived. Scratch hurried after him and caught up.

“Bo, what are you thinkin’ about doin’ now?”

“I want to ask the boss a question, that’s all.”

“About that blasted fence? Let it go, Bo. It ain’t like you to stir up a hornets’ nest.”

“If I’m going to risk getting killed, I want to know what for.”

“Nobody got killed,” Scratch pointed out. “Wasn’t even any gunshots.”

“What about the next time some Circle JP riders wind up facing Snake Track men across that barbed wire? What do you think is going to happen then?”

“I don’t know,” Scratch replied honestly. “Could be trouble.”

“That’s right.”

They had reached the steps leading up to the wide verandah that ran along the front of the house. Peeler must have seen them coming from inside, because the door opened and he stepped out to meet them.

“Howdy, Creel. Morton. Joe tells me you got that fence put up, with a little help.”

Big John Peeler lived up to his name. He stood a couple of inches over six feet, and with his barrel chest and his thick gut, weighed well over two hundred pounds. He was about fifty years old and had been in this part of the country for almost thirty years. His squarish head and rugged face looked like they had been chiseled out of a chunk of granite.

“Did Joe tell you we almost got in a shootout with Case Ridley and three of his men?” Bo asked.

Peeler nodded. “He mentioned it.” A grin spread across his face. “I sure would’ve liked to have been there when Ridley had to take water and run.” Big John slapped a hamlike hand against his thigh in amusement. “Mighty funny, and the joke’s all on him!”

“Because that fence really is in the wrong place, isn’t it?”

Peeler sobered and frowned at Bo. “What do you mean by that?”

“You’re trying to put one over on Ridley by taking more range than you agreed to. You figure once the fence is there and you have men patrolling it, there won’t be anything Ridley can do about it.”

“That’s not any of your business, Creel. You just do what you’re told and don’t worry about anything else.” Peeler snorted in disgust. “Hell, you’re lucky that I gave a couple of broken-down old saddle tramps like you and your friend any kind of job at all. If you don’t like what you’ve been doing, you can help old Jonas muck out the stables, by God! See if you like shoveling horse shit better.”

“Now wait a minute, boss—” Scratch began.

“Wait a minute, hell! I’m not used to anybody questioning what I do, and I’m sure not gonna take it from some crazy old codger.”

“I’m not that much older than you,” Bo said, tight-lipped.

“Well, maybe it’s not the years so much as it is the miles.” Peeler waved a hand. “You two get out of my sight. You can spend the next few days working in the barns with Jonas. It’s probably all you’re good for, anyway.”

Scratch had had just about enough of being talked to like that. He put a foot on the bottom step and said, “Now look here—”

Bo stopped him by taking hold of his arm. “Let it go, Scratch.”

Scratch looked over at him in surprise. “What, all of a sudden you’re the voice of reason again? I swear, Bo, you’ve got as changeable as the wind.”

“I’m just too tired to argue about this anymore. Let’s go to the bunkhouse.”

Scratch hesitated, then reluctantly nodded. “All right. I reckon it ain’t worth fightin’ over.”

Behind them, Big John Peeler laughed. “That’s right. Just like Ridley will wise up and decide that extra ground isn’t worth a range war.”

Bo stopped in his tracks. He looked back. “You’re admitting that the fence isn’t in the right place? That you’re grabbing that range just to spite Ridley?”

“Well, what of it?” Peeler shot back at him. “I knew when he saw where you fellas were building the fence, he’d come out there and start blustering around. That’s why I had Joe and some of the boys ready for him.”

“Then I was right,” Bo said quietly. “Scratch and I were just bait that you dangled in front of Ridley.”

“What of it? What else are a couple of old fools like you good for, anyway?”

Scratch made a grab for Bo’s arm but missed. With speed that belied his age and weariness, Bo bounded up the steps to the verandah and charged Big John Peeler. He slammed into the surprised rancher and drove him backward so that Peeler fell and both men crashed through the doorway, disappearing into the house.