The Desperate Deputy of Cougar Hill Read online

  “By next month, maybe,” the doctor said. “You try moving too soon and you’ll be back in bed — for a long stretch.”

  Cameron said nothing but started eating. When he was through and Draper had taken the empty soup bowl away, he threw back the covers and tried standing up. He moved too quickly at first and dizziness forced him back to the bed. But after a time he managed to stay on his feet for five and then ten minutes at a time. Satisfied, he turned down the lamp and went to sleep.

  It was late on Wednesday before he had a chance to test his legs again. Balder came in the morning to talk about the ambush. Cameron had little to offer and Balder nothing.

  “I asked Tod to look around for me,” Cameron said. “But he hasn’t shown up.”

  “He left for the roundup Sunday,” Balder said. He obviously didn’t consider anything Tod might have to say worth much in the way of help. “I figure it was Rafe and Farley. So do most folks. But that Larabee who busted up the fight claims neither one of the pair was big enough for Rafe. Besides, I hear he’s been in bed mostly since last Thursday night. If it wasn’t Rafe, who was it? Who else had any reason to jump you that way?”

  This question was one Cameron had spent a good many hours turning over in his mind. He felt sure he had part of the answer — but not enough of it to make any real sense yet.

  He said, “Right now I’m worried about Tod. When he says he’ll do something for me, he usually does it.”

  “Obed Beggs’ll be in for grub later today or early tomorrow. I’ll ask him about the kid,” Balder said. He had little more to say except to relieve Cameron’s worries about the law work, remarking that the army men had arrived and set some of their own troups to patrol themselves.

  He hadn’t been gone long when Obed Beggs wandered in, grinning his pleasure at seeing Cameron sitting up and wide awake. “The work’s going better’n I expected.” he told Cameron. “So there’s no need for you to fret yourself about helping out. Just do what Doc Draper says and stay put in this bed.”

  His grin widened. “Besides, Jenny’s doing enough work for the both of you. She knows the high country better’n anybody in these parts, so we’ve got all but a couple of mountain meadows cleaned out. It looks like we’ll have most everything corralled and turned over to the army by Saturday noon.”

  “Tod knows the high country pretty well too,” Cameron said: “Between him and Jenny, everything in it should be cleaned out.”

  Obed snorted. “That kid. I don’t know what’s got into him. He was supposed to drift in Sunday night, but I ain’t seen nor heard a thing. I don’t know where he’s got himself to.”

  Up to now Cameron’s concern for Tod had been a mild thing, built mostly on surprise that the boy hadn’t come to tell him what he’d found in the alley. But as the meaning of Obed’s words sank in, Cameron felt a cold finger of fear touch him. What if Tod had found something that pointed to the ambushers? He would have come here, of course. But then he would have been told Cameron was still unconscious. And Cameron knew with frightening certainty exactly what Tod would do in such a case. Wanting to make Cameron proud of him — and perhaps to revenge the beating — he would go after the ambushers himself.

  Cameron tried to brush aside the shadows in his mind. He was guessing, imagining too much. Tod just as well could have attached himself to one of the small crews working far in the hills, having forgotten in his excitement at working the roundup all about his obligation to report to Obed Beggs.

  After Obed left, Cameron lay for some time arguing with himself. Finally he stood up and walked out of the room to find the doctor. He moved slowly but steadily, pleased to discover that he was no longer dizzy when he got out of bed.

  Doctor Draper cursed him pleasantly and ran him back to bed. “Don’t try to be so tough,” he said.

  “I wasn’t trying to prove anything,” Cameron said. “I wanted to know if you’d seen Tod Purcell since Saturday night?”

  “He was here early Sunday morning,” the doctor answered. “Now lie still and let me have a look at those ribs.”

  Cameron obliged. He said, “Did he say anything when he was here?”

  “He asked for you. That’s all. No — he said it was important for him to see you.”

  The sharp pains from the doctor’s probing fingers went almost unnoticed. Tod had found something and he had come to report it. Cameron’s impulse was to get up and out of there, to find Tod if he could. But the short walk he had taken left him more tired than he expected. His muscles felt soggy. To try to do anything now — if there was anything left to do after four days — would help no one.

  Doctor Draper straightened up. “Don’t try any fast draws for a while, Roy. Move your right arm too fast and the pain will hit you like another kick in the ribs.”

  “All right,” Cameron said.

  By Friday morning he was feeling comparatively fit again, and he was walking around when Jenny came shortly before dinnertime. She wore her work clothes and had obviously just come off the roundup. Her smile warmed Cameron as she came eagerly forward to kiss him. Then she led him firmly back to the bed.

  “Doctor Draper warned me you’d try to show off by staying up,” she said.

  Cameron lay back. “How’s the work going?”

  “Everything’s in on the eastern end of the mountains but the high pockets,” she said. “Obed and his crews are cleaning out the west country. Tomorrow I’ll go up to Rainy Creek meadows and that’ll be the end of it.”

  Cameron recalled her having taken him twice into the high mountains just east of the south pass. He said, “Keep an eye out this time of year. Cold or even a snow could catch you up there.”

  “I’ll ride up in the morning and have the stock down before afternoon,” Jenny said. She sat on the edge of the bed, and now he caught the glint of worry in her eyes.

  “You’re thinking about Tod,” he said.

  “Have you heard …” She broke off, shaking her head. “Of course you wouldn’t have. I’m jumping at straws.”

  He said with sudden knowledge, “You have a pretty good idea where he went.”

  Jenny hesitated, but finally she nodded.

  “He told you something before he left town?” Cameron queried.

  Reluctantly, Jenny unbuttoned her shirt pocket and drew out a crumpled envelope. “Sunday, Tod gave me this to pass on to you. I didn’t give it to you before because I didn’t want you to have this to worry about — not until you’re on your feet again. But it’s been so long witout a word!”

  Cameron took the envelope and opened it. He slipped Tod’s brief note out and stared down at the patch of flannel and at the bit of fool’s gold. He read the note carefully.

  “He went to the Dondees to see what he could find out,” Cameron guessed.

  “I think so,” Jenny answered. “I’ve been meaning to ride that way, but I’ve been so busy and then the most probable answer is that Tod is with one of the small crews that went deep in the hills.”

  Cameron could see worry and weariness battling hard within her. He said gently, “You go get some rest. Tod’s pretty good at taking care of himself, and he most likely is somewhere in the hills with Obed’s men.” “The stableman told me that Tod rode out on that little paint poney he likes so well — the one with the funny frog in the left hind hoof. It leaves a little forked mark in the dirt.” She shook her head as she rose to leave. “Can Tod be right? Why would the Dondees want to beat you that way?”

  “I don’t know it was them,” Cameron said. “Tod was just guessing. They can’t have had any reason that I know of.”

  As he spoke an idea burst in his mind. Quickly, he thrust it away until Jenny left. After she went, promising to rest up for the rough ride she would have tomorrow, he lay and examined his idea. He knew now what had bothered him about Sax Larabee appearing in the alley — it wasn’t like Sax to poke his nose in other men’s business; and it wasn’t like him to go out of his way to help a man he hated as much as he obviously hated Ca
meron.

  “Sax hired that pair to jump me!” Cameron thought. Knowing Larabee as he did, Cameron thought it was possible Larabee had gone so far as to send the brothers here ahead of himself — to get a feel for the Cougar country and the kind of people in it through what they could tell him.

  More and more, Cameron realized how dangerous Sax Larabee really was. And again he felt the bite of the cold, thin fear at the thought of Larabee’s quick, calculating brain, at his complete ruthless disregard for anyone, for anything but the goal he set for himself.

  If Tod had gone to the Dondees’ mine and found Larabee there with the brothers, and if Larabee had caught him …

  Cameron waited no longer. He rose and dressed, moving carefully to husband his strength. He found his gun and belt in the wardrobe, hanging on a hook under his hat. He winced at the darts of pain that came each time he moved his right arm a little too fast or lifted it a little too high. But his strength was still holding up when he was ready to leave, and for this he was grateful.

  He slipped out through the window, not wanting to take the time to argue with Doctor Draper. By the time he was discovered missing, he hoped to be well into the valley, well on his way to the Dondees’ mine.

  IX

  CAMERON RODE slowly, letting the roan warm its muscles and getting himself accustomed to the saddle. After a time, he stepped up the pace until they were going at a smooth, ground-eating lope. Cameron was pleased to find that except for an occasional stabbing pain across his ribs he could handle himself well enough.

  He dropped the roan’s speed as he reached his own land. It looked as if nothing had been disturbed — the small bunch of cattle grazed peacefully on the thick grass at the bottom edge of the timbered slope, two cows drifted toward the spring a short distance ahead, and a young bull was romping around the edge of the herd as if he hoped to get into trouble. Cameron made a quick count and decided that Rafe Arker hadn’t been back for a second helping of beef.

  Cutting across the grass to the wagonroad, Cameron started up to the bench. When he came to the softer dirt, he stopped to look for any sign that might be worth reading. He found nothing until he reached the beginning of Rafe Arker’s road. He grunted softly. There had been a good deal of traffic along Arker’s trail a few days back, but for the moment Cameron’s interest was in only one set of prints — those belonging to Tod’s little paint. He located the fork mark he sought and examined it closely. He judged that it had been made Sunday or, at the latest, Monday. Other prints overlaid it, and they looked to be about the same age.

  Cameron rode uproad a short distance and stopped again. Here the prints left by the paint were clearer, easier to read. Tod had ridden toward the bench at a fairly slow pace, but he had been pushing his pony coming back down. From the way the soft dirt had spurted, fuzzing the edge of the sign, Cameron read this piece of Tod’s story easily enough.

  Tod had followed someone up toward the bench — a single rider, a man but not too heavy a one. But coming down he had been the one followed — and three different horsemen had been close on his heels.

  On impulse, Cameron swung the roan and rode back to Arker’s trail. He followed it slowly, now and then picking up a hoofprint where the weedy grass failed to grow. Tod had been chased along here too, he saw. Then Cameron picked up a second set of the paint’s prints and frowned, puzzled. He was too old a hand at reading sign to mistrust his own judgment, yet these hoofmarks seemed to say that Tod had ridden this trail three times within a short while — he had gone in slowly and come out only a little faster, and then he had gone in again riding like a cougar was after him.

  Cameron could pretty well guess who the boy’s pursuers were — the Dondees and either Joe Farley or Sax Larabee. Not Rafe Arker. No horse carrying his weight had been along this stretch of trail for some time. If it was Farley, then that meant Rafe had teamed up with the Dondees. It wasn’t a prospect Cameron liked. Each outfit would be hard enough to handle alone, without their working together under Sax Larabee.

  Cameron rode very slowly now, reading the story left in the soft dirt. He saw where Tod had pulled off the trail and tied his pony to a scrub pine. He spotted the bootprints that told him Tod had climbed the shoulder of the cut, going toward Rafe Arker’s cabin. And he was able to tell that Tod had come running back to the horse — not wildly like a man in panic, but quick and easy.

  He followed someone into Rafe’s and then out again, Cameron guessed. But on his second trip in, Tod had pushed the paint right on into the cut, still driving it at top speed, and still being followed by three riders pressing close.

  Cameron started to pull his carbine free of the boot but the pain jabbed up through his right side and he lost his grip on the gun butt. Swearing, he reached across with his left hand and brought the carbine up. He laid it across his lap and then turned the roan into the cut As he came out into bright sunlight at the far end, he pulled up. Two horses were tied at the railing before the door of Arker’s ramshackle cabin. One was saddled; the other was loaded with a well-lashed pack. Cameron could see no other signs of life — the weed-grown corral stood empty; nothing stirred around the barn; no smoke came from the tired chimney of the house.

  Cameron rode forward, picking up the paint’s trail. It went straight ahead, cutting across Arker’s yard toward the hills behind the sag-fenced corral. Cameron rode that way but he lost the sign on the rocky hillside.

  “You there!”

  It was Rafe Arker’s heavy voice. Cameron turned the roan just far enough to put the muzzle of the carbine on the cabin door. Rafe Arker stood there, half in and half out of the doorway. He held his .44 in one hand, a glass of murky looking beer incongruously in the other.

  “Cameron, by God!” Surprise rode Arker’s voice.

  “What’s the matter, Arker,” Cameron mocked, “didn’t you expect to see me up and around yet?”

  Arker took a belligerent step forward. “What’s that supposed to mean?”

  Cameron studied him thoughtfully. Arker was close enough so that the signs of last week’s fight showed plainly on his face. But he looked strong — strong enough to have been up and around for some time now. And Tod could have been wrong about the Dondees. Rafe Arker was the logical man to have ambushed him. Sax Larabee’s testimony was not likely to have much meaning. His claim that neither man was big enough to be Rafe Arker could be just so many empty words.

  Cameron said now, “Saturday night I was whipsawed and beaten up. A lot of people think it was your kind of trick.”

  “Saturday night I was still in bed,” Arker rumbled. “I didn’t get on my feet until Tuesday, and I didn’t do no roundup work until yesterday.” He waved his beer glass at the two horses. “I ain’t much good yet for riding down wild stuff so they sent me back for supplies.”

  That the man would offer any kind of explanation surprised Cameron. That he would offer more explanation than he needed to was worth thinking about. Cameron held the roan on a tight rein, keeping the carbine aimed at Arker.

  “If you were here, then you know what day Tod Purcell rode through your yard. Was it Monday or Tuesday?”

  He threw the question out sharply, hoping to catch Arker off guard. But he saw he had failed. Arker said easily, “I got no time to keep track of a kid’s comings and goings. Lots of riders went through here Saturday and Sunday — the quick trail to the high country goes up past my corral.”

  He took a step backwards, paused and gulped some beer. “Now get off my land, Cameron. This is private property, so ride out!”

  “So was my steer private property,” Cameron answered. “And the week I gave you is up. Pay me my fifty dollars and I’ll ride.”

  Once more he saw that he had failed to jar Arker. And again the big man surprised him. He sounded almost amiable as he said, “You’ll get your money when Obed pays me off for working the roundup. That’ll be Monday morning.”

  Cameron stared speculatively across the small yard. What the devil was Arker up to, acting thi
s way? While Cameron watched, Arker bolstered his gun, finished his beer, and turned toward the door. He stepped inside and in a moment was back, his glass gone but his hat on his head. He walked toward his saddle horse and climbed aboard. It was his big palomino and he sat it proudly.

  Leaning forward, he untied the reins of the pack horse and hooked them to his saddle. Then he freed the palomino and swung it away from the hitching rail.

  Cameron remained where he was, the rifle moving as Arker moved. Arker reined up and scowled. “I ain’t got time to fool with you now, Cameron. There’s men waiting in the hills for this grub. But if you still got ideas that I jumped you Saturday, just remember this — when I get around to rousting you, it won’t be in no dark alley. And you won’t be getting out of bed in no few days neither. And I’ll do the job myself — alone.”

  He started the horses up. “All I want is a chance to get at you when you ain’t got a gun poking at me. That’s all — just one chance.” His voice was thick and heavy with hatred. Not looking at Cameron further, he rode past him and up the trail into the hills.

  Cameron sat where he was, watching Arker until he disappeared. The man’s anger he had expected; it was his earlier attitude that Cameron found puzzling. And the words had come out hard — as if Arker hadn’t wanted to say them but had been forced to.

  As for the threat, Cameron was too experienced in the ways of men like Rafe Arker to take it lightly. He studied the hill trail, frowning. Tod had ridden that way. And from what little sign there was by the corral, Cameron guessed he was still being pressed hard when he climbed over the first hump and dropped out of sight.

  Tod might still be in those hills, Cameron thought He knew them as well as Jenny did, and given half a chance he could lead most men a will-o’-the-wisp chase as long as the strength of his horse held up well.

  Cameron’s first impulse was to move on into the hills. But there was another matter to check on first, and he swung the roan back toward the cut. He grinned a little sourly as he rode. Rafe Arker might take this to mean that he was keeping away from a fight. And Arker would be partly right. Cameron knew his own limitations. If he and the big man tangled now, Arker would grind him into the dirt. As if to disprove the thought, he tried lifting his right arm in a sharp upward movement The pain shafted up from the torn muscles across his ribs, hitting him hard enough so that he nearly went sideways out of the saddle.