The Cowboys - Chet Part 21

"So this canyon would give rustlers a protected route for at least a hundred miles."

"But it wouldn't be any good if they couldn't get out," Speers said. "These walls are over five hundred feet high."

But someone was taking cattle up the canyon. That meant there had to be a way to get them out again. All he had to do now was find it. If his guess was right, the way out was in the part of the canyon owned by the Spring Water Ranch. The rustlers had gone out of their way to shoot at several Spring Water cowhands but not wound them seriously. This didn't make sense unless they were just trying to scare them away. He would bet that the only way out of the canyon for its whole length was right here. The rustlers could hold the cattle farther up the canyon until they had enough for a drive; then they would take them out the escape route. With the Spring Water hands afraid to come near the place, they'd have plenty of gra.s.s and water and n.o.body to bother them.

"Ever see anything that looked like a way out?" Chet asked.

"Nothing but rock slides."

"Let's have a look anyway."

They rode for miles. It was a beautiful canyon, wild and majestic. Water had cut through the soft rock over millions of years, revealing colors and shades from cream to orange to slate grey. Long shadows filled the corners, cool breezes its depths. Smaller canyons branched off on both sides. Cactus grew in abundance. Chet also found thick tangles of shrubs and vines, a ribbon of trees, and enough gra.s.s to support thousands of cattle. But on every side the canyon walls rose steep and unbroken for five hundred feet. A man couldn't have scaled them without ropes.

"I'm going on," Chet said to Speers when they'd ridden about twenty miles, "but I want you to go back. Tell Melody I'll be back tomorrow. Don't tell her what I'm doing. Just say I'm checking on the cattle while I'm here."

"I could stay with you." "If one of us doesn't go back, she'll send out a search party."

Chet hadn't planned to stay out overnight, but he always carried enough food and water for at least three days. That precaution had saved his life more than once.

"Keep a sharp lookout," Speers warned. "Those guys aren't going to take kindly to anybody following their trail."

No more than Chet took kindly to being shot at. Or a lot of other things that had been happening recently. Even though he couldn't explain why, he had a feeling the rustling was at the bottom of it.

Chet took his time choosing a campsite. He took even more time fixing his supper. There wasn't much he could do on the trail, but Isabelle had gotten him used to good food. He didn't get it very often anymore, but he did his best. He'd finished eating and was enjoying his coffee when he heard the sound of a walking horse in the distance.

He listened intently. The horse was walking slowly but steadily. He was probably heading toward the light from Chet's campfire. The easy pace could be taken as a rea.s.suring sign, but Chet knew the rider could have dismounted, sent his horse on ahead, and be coming in from another direction. No one had reason to be in this part of the canyon except Spring Water riders or the rustlers, and the Spring Water hands were supposed to be back at the ranch.

Chet moved quietly into the shadows. A welcoming whinny from his horse didn't upset him. The rider already knew he was there. As his eyes gradually got used to the twilight, he made out the dark shape of a horse and rider coming down the trail. While they were still a hundred feet away, Chet realized there was something familiar about the shape of the rider. Fifty yards away, Chet's muscles relaxed. He holstered his gun, walked back to the campfire, and poured another cup of coffee.

The rider halted in the shadows, just out of the range of light.

"Light and sit a spell," Chet said.

The man dismounted and stepped forward into the light.

"Howdy, Luke," Chet said. "I was wondering when we'd run into each other."

Chapter Thirteen.

Luke accepted the cup of coffee from his brother, then settled himself on a low shelf of rock. He took a swallow. "You always did make lousy coffee."

"Some things never change."

Luke took another swallow. "I thought you'd be halfway to New Mexico by now."

Chet searched his brother's face, but flickering shadows cast by the firelight obscured his expression. "I'd planned to."

"What's keeping you?"

"Your boss and his son. I can't leave those two women with no one to protect them. I'm ramroding their outfit until they can find someone else."

"It's not your problem."

"That's not the way I see it."

He could see enough of Luke's expression to know he didn't like what he heard. But Chet hadn't expected he would.

"You know Royal is after your head."

"Blade, too, I imagine."

"He won't be allowed to leave the house until he's fully recovered. I was able to convince Lantz you might be out to kill him."

Chet tensed and directed a hard stare at his brother. He'd never distrusted Luke, but their interests had never come into conflict before. "Now why would I do something like that?"

"He figured you must be a gunfighter. You couldn't have beaten Blade and Billy if you weren't. Everybody knows gunfighters don't like people trying to kill them."

Luke might as well have put a price on Chet's head. "So now Lantz sends his men out to find me."

"So Lantz locks his son up in the house where he can't pull another fool stunt like setting up an ambush for Tom Neland and then nearly killing that kid."

Chet had hoped Luke would look out for him, but he wasn't sure what kind of game Luke was playing. He seemed to be straddling the fence, but Chet knew Luke never took any side but his own.

"Has Lantz sent you to kill me?"

"Would I be here if he had?"

"Yes. You'd tell me first so I'd have a fair chance."

Luke looked directly at his brother, his face devoid of any trace of emotion. "Do you think I would?"

The whole time they were being thrown out of one foster home after another, and later when Jake and Isabelle adopted them, Chet had been certain he and Luke would always stand together. But Luke had changed since they'd left the ranch. They both had.

But each was all the other had. That was important to Chet. In his gut he felt it was important to Luke, too.

"No," Chet said. He was relieved to see Luke relax, even allow a hint of a smile to curve his lips. "But it's got to put you in a very awkward position. Does Royal know we're brothers?"

"No. Do the Jordans know about me?"

"No, but that'll change if anybody sees us together."

"I've thought of that," Luke said. "I managed to convince Lantz I needed to stay around the house to protect Blade from you."

"What are you doing out here?"

"I can't be around that boy all the time, or I'd shoot him myself. I'm doing what Lantz hired me to do in the first place, trying to find the rustlers. What are you doing?"

"The same thing. I'm certain they're using this canyon as a holding area until they collect enough for a drive. I'm also sure there's a way out, one that's on Spring Water land."

"That's pretty much what I suspected, but I don't see how they manage to escape detection unless there's somebody on the inside feeding them information."

"Have you ever considered that somebody on the inside might be running it?"

"Why?"

"What about a foreman looking to build a ranch of his own?"

"But these two ranches have been the hardest hit. Everybody knows Tom Neland was as honest as a preacher, and the LR don't have a foreman. Who else could it be?"

"I don't know. It just feels like somebody on the inside. How else could they always know where everybody was going to be?"

"That would mean people at both ranches. Do you have any idea who on your crew could be feeding them information?"

"No. Do you on yours?"

"Any one of that group that hangs around Blade."

"Can you get rid of them?"

"No, but they won't do anything without Blade."

"He's dangerous. I think he's crazy in the head."

"Could be."

Luke got up to pour himself more coffee.

"You going back tonight?" Chet asked.

"Yeah. I can only leave when Lantz is there."

"Why don't you quit?" Chet shouldn't have asked that, but he couldn't stop himself. He hated to think of his brother working for a man like Lantz Royal.

"Why don't you leave?" Luke asked.

"I will as soon as they find another foreman."

"I'll leave as soon as I find the rustlers."

They were silent again. When they were boys, they sometimes used to lie awake all night talking about nothing at all. Now they couldn't manage a twenty-minute conversation even though what they said could affect the lives of dozens of people.

"You know you ought to give this up," Chet said. "Sooner or later some crazy fool like Blade is going to shoot you in the back."

"I thought you had given it up." "I had until Blade shot me."

"Where you going when this is over?"

"Someplace around the Four Corners. Maybe Arizona. I hear there's some nice country in the Tonto Basin or north of the Mogollon Rim."

"Looking for a place as far away from other people as possible?"

"I'm tired of this life, Luke. I want to go someplace where I can't be found."

"Then go to New Orleans or San Francisco. n.o.body'll ever find you there."

"I'd be miserable in a city. I'm a cowboy. I want a ranch."

"Then go home. Jake would be happy to have you, and Isabelle would fall on your neck."

"Will you come with me?"

"No. I don't fit there."

"You're too good to be mixing with the likes of Lantz and his son."

"I don't mix. I do my job and move on."

"What'll you have when you stop moving on?"

"Who says I'm going to stop?"

"Everybody stops someday, one way or another."

"You let me worry about myself."

Chet didn't know why he had started this discussion. They had the same one every time they met, and it always ended with them angry at each other. He had no business trying to run Luke's life. He hadn't done very well with his own. Only he couldn't bear to think of Luke dead.

"It's too late to go back," Chet said. "One day somebody would show up looking for me, and Jake or one of the boys would try to stop them. I get nightmares thinking about what might happen." "Change your name. Jake would love to fill that valley with Maxwells. Since Isabelle can't give him any sons now, somebody's got to do it for him."

Chet resolutely put out of his mind the picture of the secluded valley he'd left, the miles of rich gra.s.s and running streams, the snug homes where the people he'd learned to love gathered to share their lives. Some stayed, some drifted away, and some came back. There was plenty of room for Chet. If only he hadn't made it impossible for himself to go back.

"Leave, Luke," Chet said. "We're bound to come up against each other if we keep working for opposite sides."

"We've managed to avoid it so far."

"But we've never been on a collision course before."

"I can't leave until I've completed the job I signed on to do."

Chet sighed. He hadn't expected anything else. He would have felt the same way. "Then let's find the rustlers before Lantz sends you after me."

Melody tried to get more comfortable, but her body was stiff, and she was tired of mending. Her neck ached from bending over her work so long. And from tension. She had been upset ever since Speers had told her Chet was staying in the canyon. By the time she'd badgered him into telling her what they'd found, what Chet suspected, and what he intended to do, she was worried. She'd only wanted him to find the horses, not go after a bunch of murdering rustlers.