Savage Guns

FIFTEEN

Critter was mad at me. When I entered his stall, he fired a left rear hoof at my groin. He sure knows how to hurt a guy.

“Cut it out. We’re going for a trip,” I said.

I started to brush him, but he leaned into me, pushing me against the plank wall, intending to break a few of my ribs.

“You’re dog food,” I said.

I kneed him away just before he splintered my whole rib cage. He laid back his ears and clacked his teeth.

“Try that again and I’ll leave you here,” I said.

That subdued him. He hated cooped-up life in there. He suffered in there. He rolled his eyes upward like a helpless wife in there. And in between, he plotted murder and mayhem. But the threat to leave him there wrought a new cheerfulness in him, and he settled for a swat across my face with his dung-soaked tail.

“That’s better,” I said.

I brushed him real good, threw the blanket on, and my saddle over that, cinched it up, wary of another hoof, and then I stuffed a bit in his mouth and slid the bridle over his ugly ears.

I backed him out into the aisle. He sighed, farted, dropped some apples, and we were ready to travel. Critter and I had been friends for half a dozen years.

The town would take care of itself this day. Rusty and DeGraff would man the sheriff office and jail, with shotguns at the ready. But I didn’t expect trouble. All them T-Bar men wanted was to make sure there was a hanging, and the prisoner didn’t get stolen away from us. But that wasn’t gonna happen.

I steered Critter out on Wyoming Street, and soon put Doubtful behind me. It was a nippy spring day, with a few razors in the wind, but that was fine with me. I get tired of city life pretty quick. I wasn’t sure I’d stay in Doubtful for long, but the pay was pretty fine and I got to sip some red-eye now and then, and look at horseflesh, and sometimes female flesh, which was better than once-a-month ranch paydays. I buttoned my canvas coat up tight and pulled my hat low against the gusty wind out of the snowy mountains.

Critter and me, we were going on a little exploration. As long as most all of them T-Bar men and Crayfish Ruble were camping in my metropolis, I thought I’d just go have a look at the T-Bar when there was no one but a couple of caretakers around there. I just wanted to see a few things. It wasn’t that I thought King Bragg was innocent, but things didn’t add up, and I’d hate to hang a feller who didn’t do what he was said to do. I still had a few days before the big event, so I thought I’d just poke around and see what could be seen. I didn’t much like it that the only witnesses to King Bragg’s killing spree of T-Bar men was other T-Bar men.

Critter, he was so happy to get out of jail that he was almost frisky. He kept wanting to run, but I reined him in.

“We got ten miles each way, feller,” I said.

But I let him settle into a jog that was easy on my ass-end and still ate up time. The T-Bar was up the valley, farther than the Anchor Ranch owned by Admiral Bragg, which was a bone of contention. Crayfish ached to be closer to town, and had designs on Bragg’s property so he could ride into town most any time and entertain the ladies. But Bragg had got here first, and had nabbed all the best land, which even had some well-watered hay meadow and a creek or two, leaving latecomers like Crayfish to settle the dry hills and long gulches.

It sure was peaceful. Even if the wind had an edge, the sun was bright and warm. I like to get out of town and see the crows flying when I need a little time away from people, who are usually at each other’s throats. Not that nature is peaceful. That hawk circling over there was pretty quick going to land on a vole or some such critter and have him for dinner. Nature’s the same as people when it comes to spilling blood, but I like the country better than the town anyway.

I steered past a mess of Anchor Ranch cattle. Bragg had started with them red shorthorns, and was trying to breed closer to Angus now. I steered toward a bunch that was all wearin’ the Anchor brand unmistakable. I continued up the road a piece and saw a horseman heading my way. Only it wasn’t male, judging from that big straw hat and the way the party sat the horse. I sort of dreaded what was coming. I guess Queen Bragg was the last person I wanted to see. She was a huffy sort, and probably would’ve tried the jailbreak her pa was cooking up, and besides, she was ornery and uppity too. But I thought I’d put up with it, seeing as how she was closing on me fast.

Sure enough, it was Queen, riding a blooded mare and wearing one of them split leather skirts so she could ride astride. I never did understand why women ride sidesaddle, and I sort of secretly was pleased to see Queen showing some sense. Well, she sailed right up and smiled.

“Howdy, Miss Bragg,” I said.

“Howdy yourself. You looking for something here?”

“Nope, just riding through.”

“Off to the Crayfish empire then.”

I wasn’t gonna tell her my business so I just stared.

“You want company?” she asked.

“No, miss, I’ll just go her alone.”

“Well, you’ve got company,” she said, steering that blooded horse in beside me.

“I’m doing fine alone, miss, so you just get along now and take the morning air, and I’ll be on my way.”

“You’re stuck with me.”

I surrendered a little. “Only until we get to the T-Bar range,” I said. “This is your turf, so I’ll somehow manage to survive the next mile or two if I try real hard and you don’t try no more jailbreaks.”

She laughed, damn her. How do you chase off some woman like her without threatening to shoot her and the horse? She had me roped and tied, and she knew it.

She settled in beside me, and I could tell she was eyeing me out of the corner of her eyes, but I just stayed real stony. I wasn’t gonna bend an inch.

“I’m sorry about what happened in town,” she said. “It wasn’t my idea or my will, but my father made me.”

“Made you what?” I asked just as cold as I could.

“Made me smuggle.”

“Smuggle what?”

“A loaded two-shot derringer, a hacksaw blade, a file, a knife, and a ball of cord.”

“You had all that stuff under…down there?”

“In my skirts. I was a walking arsenal because I also had a spare revolver if my father needed one.”

“You was hauling iron, miss. I should have pinched you.” I didn’t like how I said it. “I mean, arrested you.”

She smiled. “Maybe pinched would have been better.”

“Now see here, Miss Queen, I’m a proper sheriff.”

She laughed, and I was plumb pissed off.

“I should have arrested you and had you searched.”

“You could have searched me without even asking, Cotton.”

“Lady, you stop your nag right there and I’m riding ahead, and don’t you follow.”

I never got invited to search a woman before, and I don’t have the smarts to deal with it, so I just got huffy, which seemed to work, at least for a few moments.

She followed, and then caught up, pushing her nag until it was beside mine. I scowled at her some, but what’s a feller to do. Queen, she had a faint smile twitching her lips a little.

“Is King safe?” she asked.

“I think so. All them T-Bar riders just want to make sure he’s, ah, sent away. They ain’t trying to bust in. Truth is, Miss Bragg, they’re making sure you and your pa don’t spirit the boy away.”

“He’s innocent, you know.”

“No I don’t know. But I’m poking around some.”

“Is that what you’re doing now?”

“I don’t think it’s your business, miss.”

“If you are, maybe I can help.”

“No, when we get to the T-Bar line, I’m crossing and you’re staying put.”

“I ride the T-Bar range all the time. No one ever bothers me. That’s because I’m me. I know some things to show you.”

“Like what?”

“Unmarked graves. New brands that aren’t registered in the brand books.”

“No, that don’t have any bearing on King shooting three T-Bar men.”

“But they do. The brands are all on mavericked calves.”

“What’s that got to do with anything, girl?”

She absorbed my tone, and rode quietly beside me, saying nothing. Critter, he didn’t like that blooded mare beside him and snapped now and then. But the day was too fine for anyone to stay ornery, including a horse who’d been pining for sunshine and grass.

We got to the T-Bar line. This was still pretty much open range, but there was a gate and a drift fence here. I got down and opened the gate. She rode through.

“Hey! This is where we part company,” I said.

She didn’t budge.

I turned Critter, reached down and grabbed the bridle of that blooded horse of hers, and led it through the gate. Then I got off Critter to close the gate, but next I knew, she was back on T-Bar range. This was getting tiresome.

“You head back or I’ll head back. The pair of us ain’t going forward,” I said.

“I wish you were more forward, Sheriff,” she said.

She was sitting her saddle and smiling at me like a cat that just gulped a mouse. I just don’t know how to deal with ballsy women.

“Oh, all right,” I said, feeling grouchy. The best I could say for her was that she was different away from her pa. Around him, she was mean and always lookin’ down her nose at me. Here she smiled some when she looked down her nose at me. This Queen Bragg was a lot more pleasant to be around than the version of Queen when her old man was lording over her.

“Well, you show me the stuff, and then go hightail out of here,” I said, not wanting to surrender easily.

I pulled the wire gate shut and dropped the loop to secure it. I sure didn’t know whether this was a good idea, her along with the sheriff on T-Bar Ranch land. There wasn’t no one in sight; just a lot of grassy hills, greening up in the spring, and blue sky, and puffy white clouds that could betray a feller and dump snow or ice or cold rain in a moment.

I guessed we wouldn’t see anyone, what with all but two or three of them T-Bar men in town. But I pulled my badge from my pocket and pinned it on my coat. That badge could put me there on the ranch proper. But I didn’t have no badge for her.

It sure was quiet. The wind had slowed to a whisper and the midday sun had warmed things into a fine day. I didn’t see one steer or cow or calf or bull. Nothing but a golden eagle, wings spread out to every last feather-tip, patrolling for mice or rabbits.

We began to ride among T-Bar cattle, grazing peacefully, their brand burned into their left flank. Crayfish wasn’t much interested in breeding up, so his cows were a motley bunch, every color I could think of and then some, and showing a lot of horn, like there was some Texas longhorn in the lot.

We rode onward, and then hit a bunch of young stuff, yearlings mostly, and this bunch interested me because it had a Two Plus brand burned into their left flank, instead of the T-Bar. I steered Critter close to have a look, and sure enough, the brand was one I’d never seen, and I could see how easy it was to turn a T-Bar into a Two Plus with a running iron. But there the bunch was.

“I guess I’ll have to look in the brand book to see who owns those,” I said. “Maybe Crayfish does.”

“Maybe he didn’t but does now,” she said.

“What do you mean by that.”

“They’ve been mavericked. You can call it the Two Plus if you want. I’ll call it the Double Cross.”

That sure was a revelation.

“I guess I’ll look for some answers,” I said.

“Now I’m going to take you to the cemetery,” she said.

“What’s there?”

“You’ll see.”

She took the lead, riding toward ranch headquarters located in a broad gulch a mile ahead. We still didn’t see a soul, what with all them boys in town. But long before we reached the ranch buildings, she turned into a side gulch, and we followed it completely out of sight of the main buildings. It was a brushy gulch, and we scared up deer and skunks and various critters, working through red willow brush and whatnot. The gulch divided into three branches, and she took the rightmost one, which wound deep into grassy hills.

I sure got to wondering where she was going, and how she knew to come to this silent notch in the foothills, but she kept right on until she suddenly stopped.

There, on a clay flat, were four long mounds, that sure looked to me like four graves. They weren’t marked, and one of the mounds was pretty much disintegrated from flash floods running over it.

“Dig,” she said.

But I didn’t have a shovel.