‘What in the hell are you doin’, poking round here?’ said Fats, ‘You spyin’ on us, maybe?’
The words sent a chill through Dan Lewis’s heart and he hoped that he was not about to go red, as he often did when detected in some misdemeanour. ‘Spy, yourself!’ he said angrily, ‘What d’you mean by creepin’ up behind a fellow in that wise?’
To Dan’s surprise, Fats burst out laughing. ‘You got some sand, boy!’ he said, ‘I didn’t mean to accuse you of nothin’. Just wondered what you were up to.’
‘Never really had any dealings with branding or aught of that kind,’ said Dan, ‘I was just thinkin’ of how it might be for the steer, was all.’
‘They don’t feel nothing,’ Fats assured him, ‘They skin is right tough and thick. The heat only touches the surface. It ain’t like it would be if you or me was touched with a red hot iron. Come along of me and I’ll show you how it’s done.’
There was something about Fats that Dan found alarming, although he could not for the life of him have said why. On the face of it, the man was friendly enough, but Dan felt in his company that same visceral unease which some experience in the presence of snakes. The man just gave him the creeps.
Fats led Dan to a field which contained ten or twelve unbranded calves. They were frisky little things; weaned, but still full of a babyish love of play. When they saw the two men approaching, three of the calves came gambolling over to greet them. Fats reached over the rail and scratched one of the cute little things behind the ears.
‘You know ‘bout mavericks?’
‘What, you mean those little ones as are found roaming free without marks?’ asked Dan, ‘Sure, I know it’s by way of being a case of finders keepers, as you might say.’
‘Well then, these here are mavericks as me and the boys have found. We’ve yet to mark ‘em, so happen you can lend a hand. We’ll do it now.’
‘Surely.’
‘Listen up, why don’t you scoot back to the forge and fetch me a sack o’ charcoal. Bring one o’ them irons as well; the ‘Barred Os.’
It didn’t take long between the two of them to kindle a fire by the side of the field containing the calves. There were plenty of sticks and pieces of dried cowdung around to start off the charcoal. Once that was going well, Fats placed the iron in the heart of the fire and directed Dan to bring over a calf. Although the little creature reached only a little higher than Dan’s waist, it was surprisingly strong and evinced a marked reluctance to come near the fire. It took all Dan’s strength to drag the frightened animal to the fire and then wrestle it to the ground. Fats snorted derisively as he saw the delicate way that Dan handled the calves. ‘Jeez, man,’ he shouted, ‘You’ll have to work faster than that. What’s wrong, you afraid of those beasts?’
‘I ain’t afraid o’ them,’ replied Dan indignantly, ‘I just don’t want to hurt ‘em.’
‘Hurt ‘em? Why, there’re a goin’ to be ate in a year or two. Stop being so dainty about it. Listen, you take the branding iron and I’ll show you how to bring ‘em in.’
Even when he was rounding up the hogs on his own farm, Dan didn’t like to see them scared or to be too rough with them. Fats showed no such consideration for the calves, dragging them over to where Dan stood waiting at the fire with many kicks, blows and curses. By the time he knocked them to the ground, the poor things were terrified out of their wits; their eyes staring and their breath coming in short, painful gasps. ‘There now,’ said Fats, ‘You just gotta let ‘em know who’s boss.’
While he was trying to summon up the courage to place the hot iron against the calf’s skin, Dan thought that he caught a glint of light up in the hills which overlooked the fields. It put him in mind of the winking flash which had alerted him to the presence of the men from the Carson ranch, the day before. But when he looked closely to see what had caused the light, he could see nothing. ‘What the hell are you gaping at?’ enquired Fats sharply, ‘Christ, even when I do all the hard work and bring the animals to you, you’re still dreaming and gazing off at the Lord knows where. I tell you straight, you stay here and you’re goin’ to have to liven your ideas up!’
***
Abe Goldman reached his hand round quickly and covered the lenses of the powerful Zeiss binoculars. The youth had stared straight up at him and Goldman felt sure he’d been spotted. To his relief, the two men he had been observing just carried on with their branding. Had they been suspicious, he guessed that they would have mounted up and ridden into the hills to investigate.
The sight of a dozen or so calves in a corral was enough to arouse the liveliest apprehensions in the mind of the Pinkerton’s agent that he had come upon a large-scale rustling operation. That the two men below were in the process of marking those same calves suggested that they were mavericks, which had probably been collected wholesale from the surrounding countryside.
The unwritten rule about mavericks being free for all comers to take and claim for their own was an ancient tradition but one which had now reached the end of its useful life. It was one thing when it might involve the odd stray calf here and there, quite another when gangs of men were combing the land systematically in search of calves, as these fellows evidently had been.
Goldman was an oldfashioned kind of fellow, with a great respect for the customs which had arisen over the frontier years, but he could see that this old tradition was being sorely abused by men such as the owner of the “Barred Os”. Well, Mr Dave Carson’s days at this racket were surely numbered now. As far as Abraham Goldman was concerned, he had enough evidence to make his report. It would then be up to others what to make of it all. At a guess, some of the big ranchers would put together a body of men and ride up here to settle the matter for their own selves. Goldman couldn’t see anybody taking the trouble to involve the regular law in something of this sort.
When they had finally got all the calves branded, Fats took Dan over to have coffee with some of the other men whom he had not yet met. They were a rough looking bunch and no mistake. Indian Falls, like most towns, had one or two inhabitants who were generally known to be shiftless, idle and vicious. One could often recognize these types, by the way that decent and respectable folk tended to give them a wide berth when walking along Main Street. Some such were charity cases, whose neighbours made sure that their families did not suffer too badly as a consequence of the breadwinner’s incorrigible disposition. Then again, others were lone wolves: men who lived alone and preyed on whoever they could find. These were men who would steal chickens from the nearest farm or even rustle horses and cattle if the opportunity presented itself.
Hitherto, Dan Lewis had only ever seen one of these unlovable specimens alone. Here on the ‘Barred Os’ there were dozens of them and an unattractive sight they were too. When Fats introduced him to them, these men welcomed Dan at once as a young fellow after their own delinquent hearts. It irked the young man to be regarded as such a character, but he realized well enough that his safety, indeed his very life, probably depended upon the imposture and so he simply smiled at the others and made himself as agreeable as he could.
Later that day, after most of the work around the ranch had been undertaken, Dan Lewis was given ample proof of the danger in which he stood. The incident erupted from a trifling cause and it was all over before the boy had realized that anything was happening. Here is how it chanced.
At around dusk, four of the men commenced to play draw poker for match-sticks. The men concerned were all well acquainted and tolerably good friends with each other. By ill fortune, an accusation of sharp practice was made by two of the men against one of the others. All four of them were as sober as judges and no money was at stake. You might have thought that the squabble would just fizzle out in a flurry of recriminations, but the fourth member of the group took it into his head to take offence on behalf of the one accused of cheating. It was no affair of his, but he was feeling a mite irritable and thought that he could vent his feelings upon another couple of men by engaging in a little rough and tumble.
The first intimation that the quarrelsome fellow had that things might perhaps be more serious than he had bargained for, came when one of the men who had raised the suspicion of cheating at play said, ‘Pistols or knives?’ Up to that point, it had looked like a routine fight with fists and boots; of a kind that broke out at least once or twice a day among the men who worked for Dave Carson.
‘Pistols or knives?’ asked the man who had been unwise enough to involve himself in a dispute which didn’t concern him, ‘Why, we don’t need to go so far, I reckon.’
‘Yellow, hey?’ said the one spoiling for a deadly confrontation, ‘You near as damn it called me a liar just now. Pistols or knives?’
Those nearby had stopped talking and doing whatever else they had been engaged in and watched the situation curiously. Dan Lewis was nearby and thought that this was just the sort of big talk which he had heard before. Neither he, nor any of the others present, really believed that anything would come of it. That was before the man who had issued the challenge touching upon knives or guns, drew an enormous Bowie knife from its sheath at the back of his belt and launched a murderous attack upon the man facing him.
Jack Tregarth, the fellow who had at first stuck up for the accused, jumped back and fumbled at his belt for the kinfe he kept there. By all the rules of such duellos, his opponent should at this point have waited for the other man to arm himself, but his attacker was evidently not acquainted with the finer points of such fights. Instead of standing there and waiting patiently, he lunged forward, sweeping his blade in a wide arc and cutting Tregarth’s throat. Nearby men leaped to their feet, shouting in protest as they were sprayed with arterial blood. Jack Tregarth stood there for a second or two, with a surprised and baffled expression on his face, like he’d just taken a sip of coffee and found it hotter than was comfortable. Then he fell dead; coming to rest with his face half in the fire that had been started to brew coffee.
The sudden and unexpected death of Jack Tregarth was neither the first, nor the most violent, such death to take place at the “Barred Os”. It was felt that his killer might perhaps have given the dead man a chance to get his own knife out, but nobody felt in the least inclined to broach this subject – at least not within earshot of the man himself. That individual had already made it plain that he took any sort of criticism very ill indeed.
Dan Lewis, although he had been pretty near the murder, had not been one of those to be spattered with blood. Nevertheless, the whole business had a profoundly unsettling effect upon him. The death itself was shocking enough, but it was the attitudes of those around him that Dan found most alarming. They treated the untimely end of Jack Tregarth as a kind of grim joke: just another misfortune, such as could befall anybody. There was clearly going to be no effort to bring home the murder to the perpetrator and even the man who had originally been suspected of sharping did not seem eager to avenge the fellow who had stood up for him. Later that night, two men removed Tregarth’s corpse and Dan never heard what had become of it.
Both the ‘Triple C’ and the ‘South Texas Livestock Company’ had banded together with others to hire a man from Pinkerton’s; somebody who would get to the bottom of the rustling racket that they were sure was operating in that part of the state. Goldman was the man who was being paid by the agency to investigate the business and when he had gathered as much information as he could, it would be his duty to let head office in Chicago know what was going on. It surely was a pity though to spend all this time collecting the facts and laying on his belly to spy on a bunch of cowboys and then just draw his usual wage for the job. Even as he was investigating the supposed crime on behalf of Pinkerton’s, Goldman was trying to figure a way of making a little on the side and he thought that he had come up with a surefire way of doing so.
It was reasonably certain that the owners of the ‘Three Cs’ and the ‘S.T.L.C.’ would not recognize him as a Pinkerton’s man. They would already have paid his boss a retainer. Why not just ride over to the ‘Three Cs’ and sell them the facts about Dave Carson’s little operation? Abe Goldman felt confident of his ability to tinker with his report, so that when Pinkerton’s sent it in to the owner of the ‘Triple C,’ he would not realize that he had already paid for this same information.
Having found out as much as he was likely to do about Carson’s scheme, the Pinkerton’s agent could see no reason, other than a strictly moral one, why he should not beetle down to the ‘Three Cs’ and inform the owner of the ranch about all that he had discovered. Most likely, thought Goldman, he wouldn’t even need to broach the topic of payment himself: Carmichael would be so grateful, he would shower Abe with gold as a matter of course.
Having made his plans, Goldman wriggled back from his vantage point overlooking the ‘Barred Os’ and then, when once he was out of sight, he stood up and walked at a brisk pace back to where he had left his horse. There was little enough point in hanging around here any further.
The death of Jack Tregarth cast somewhat of a dampener on the spirits of those working at the ‘Barred Os’. It was not that they were squeamish and delicate men, quite the contrary, but they expected at least some good motive for murder. That one of their fellows had been slain for no other reason than that he had raised an objection to his partner being charged with cheating at play, was a little much, even by their standards. There was no more card play after the death and everybody, as though by common consent, turned in earlier than usual. Nothing was actually said to the hulking creature who had killed Tregarth, after all, nobody had any particular wish to share his fate, but it was plain that in their own rough way, they wanted to indicate their disapproval of his actions.
As he lay in his cot that night, after the lamps had been extinguished, Dan Lewis listened to the desultory conversation in the bunkhouse.
‘That’s a hell of a thing to happen!’
‘Yeah. Still and all, Jack should o’ known better than to cross that greaser.’
‘You got that right!’
‘Mind,’ said a third voice in the darkness, ‘Nobody asked him to go mixing it in that quarrel. He might o’ guessed as it would end badly.’
‘Happen so,’ said the first man who had spoken, ‘But I’ll warrant he never thought it would be the death of him.’
There was silence for a minute or more. All the men were hunkered down in their cots and the darkness was nigh on impenetrable in the large room. At length, another man said, ‘It say in scripture as getting involved in somebody else’s quarrel is as bad as grabbing a strange dog by the ears.’
‘Nobody gives a stuff about scripture,’ opined the man in the next bed, ‘But even so, there’s something in what you say. If’n Jack Tregarth had kept his mouth closed when trouble began, then like as not the lightning would have struck the other fellow and passed him by.’
These words were the last observation to be passed on the matter in the bunkhouse in which Dan was sleeping. After a space, the large room fell silent; apart that is, from the stertorous snuffles and occasional farts that punctuated the stillness.
Even after all the others were sleeping, Dan found that he was still wide awake. After tossing and turning restlessly, he thought that he might as well get up and go for a walk. He climbed out of his bed, pulled on his clothes and picked up his boots – tiptoeing from the room in his stockinged feet, to avoid waking any of the others.
Outside the bunkhouse, the night was moonless and peaceful. It felt good to be in the fresh air. Dan pulled on his boots and thought that as sleep had utterly deserted him, he might just as well take a turn up to the corrals and back. Perhaps the exercise would tired him out a little. He had to step carefully, because it was easy to trip over in the gloom.
The corrals were really more in the nature of holding pens than anything else. Cattle brought to the ‘Barred Os’ might typically stay in a fenced field for a few days, before being moved on. There was a natural desire on the part of those working with the steers, not to keep them in fenced enclosures for any longer than was necessary. The creatures were always breaking down the wooden fence posts and this meant being roused at any hour of the day or night to help herd them back again and also to repair the broken fences. At that time, the corrals chiefly contained calves.
Two of the calves which Dan had earlier helped to brand came up and nuzzled him, as he stood by the rail. They did not appear to bear him any ill will for his part in pressing red-hot irons against their skin earlier that day. He looked at the marks that he and Fats had left and was pleasantly surprised to find that it was as Fats had said; only the outer layer of skin was blackened. Another calf wandered over and Dan chucked that too behind the ears and craned round in the uncertain light to see how this one was bearing up. This one was a little larger than the others and had not been in the enclosure when Fats and Dan had been doing the branding. Somebody must have brought it in later. It looked, at least to his eye, a mite large to be a maverick.
When he peered closely at the brand on the calf’s rump; Dan received a sudden shock. Instead of the ‘Barred Os’ which he expected to see, he found that he was looking at the ‘Three Cs’ of the Carmichael Cattle Company. Really, this should not have come as any great surprise; after all, he knew that these boys were rustling. It was the sight of that brand, after having just seen the ‘Barred Os’ which gave Dan Lewis the jolt, because he knew at once what was going on and how Carson and his men were working their racket.
So Lewis immediately sees his chance of redemption with the Three C's by reporting the rustling operation to them.
But when Goldman does likewise, he will doubtless recognise Lewis as the youth he saw branding calves.. How will the lad we have been led to identify with then escape an immediate hanging?