The Range Detectives Page 3

  “You’re my boss’s wife, Mrs. Dempsey.” He emphasized the title. “I don’t reckon it would be proper.”

  “And right now I don’t care what’s proper. If you work for my husband, that means you work for me, too, Mr. Hartford. And I’m ordering you to dance with me.”

  Anger welled up inside him. No matter how he felt about her, she had no right to talk to him like that. Something had her stirred up—no doubt the resentment she felt toward Dempsey, who was ignoring her as usual and talking to Henry Stafford—and she was letting that out.

  “Don’t do this, Laura,” Dan said quietly.

  “It’s high time that I did,” she said.

  He sensed the determination in her and knew she wasn’t going to give up, now that she had her mind set on this. He said, “All right, I’ll dance with you, but you have to dance with some of the other fellas first. That way there won’t be anything that looks unusual about it.”

  “I don’t want to dance with anybody else. And you don’t want me to make a scene, do you, Dan?”

  “Damn it . . .” He grimaced and took her hand. “Let’s get this over with.”

  “You could at least look happy about it,” she said as she faced him and put her other hand on his shoulder. He slid his free arm around her waist, and they began stepping and turning in time to the music.

  The problem was, he was too happy to have her in his arms like this, he thought as they twirled. He was careful to keep some distance between them, but he felt the soft warmth of her body through their clothes and it made him want to pull her against him. He wanted the music to slow down, so they could dance close and she could rest her head against his chest and the tantalizing fragrance of her hair would fill his senses . . .

  “By God!” an angry voice said loudly. The music came to an abrupt stop. A hard hand gripped Dan’s shoulder, pulled him away from Laura, and hauled him around. As the people around them stared, Abel Dempsey went on, “Get your hands off my wife.”

  That was bad enough, but then Dempsey did something worse.

  He slapped Dan across the face.

  Dan’s first instinct was to strike back, to bring up a fist and crash it into the older man’s jaw. He reined in that impulse for a couple of reasons: for one thing, Dempsey was his boss, and for another, the rancher was twenty years older than he was. Dan had been raised to respect his elders—even when they sometimes didn’t deserve it.

  Standing there with the imprint of Dempsey’s hand hot on his cheek, Dan said tightly, “I’m going to let that slide—”

  Dempsey slapped him again, this time with the left hand.

  “Abel, no!” Laura cried. “What are you doing?”

  “Defending your honor from this boorish cowboy,” Dempsey snapped. “He should have known better than to ask you to dance with him.”

  “But he didn’t—”

  Dempsey ignored her, balled his hands into fists, and moved toward Dan.

  “Now I’m going to give him a thrashing before I throw him off this ranch for good.”

  Dan could stand a lot when he had to, but damned if he was going to let Dempsey attack him again without fighting back. He had turned the other cheek, like it said in the Good Book, and wound up with both of them slapped.

  Dempsey wasn’t going to hit him again. Dan swore that to himself.

  Laura must have seen the light of battle in his eyes. She moved quickly, trying to get between the two men and forestall any fighting. Dan didn’t figure it would do any good, though. Dempsey had his heart set on a ruckus.

  “Abel, please—” Laura began.

  A man yelled, “I’ll get him, boss!”

  Dan’s head whipped toward the sound of the shout. He was just in time to see Jube Connolly leaping toward him with a savage snarl on the flushed, round face.

  Connolly crashed into him and drove him to the side, scattering the guests who had been dancing but had stopped to watch the confrontation between Dan and Abel Dempsey.

  “Watch out for my fiddle, gol dang it!” one of the musicians yelled as the crowd jostled him.

  Dan heard Laura cry out, then he slammed into the ground with Connolly on top of him. The impact drove the air from his lungs and stunned him.

  Connolly’s fists pounded into Dan’s head and body. He could tell that he was about to pass out and knew that if he didn’t fight back right now, he wasn’t going to get the chance to.

  He struck desperately with a left that connected with the side of Connolly’s head. That made the big man pause for a second. Dan took advantage of that to rocket his right fist straight up under Connolly’s chin.

  Hitting that rocklike wedge might not have done any good if the tip of Connolly’s tongue hadn’t been sticking out between his teeth. Connolly howled in pain as he bit deeply into it. Blood sprayed from his mouth and splattered over Dan’s face.

  Dan grabbed Connolly by the throat with both hands and rolled over, forcing Connolly off him. With that weight gone, Dan could finally gasp for breath again. He bore down with his grip on Connolly’s throat, digging in with his thumbs as in his rage he sought to crush the man’s windpipe.

  Blood roared in Dan’s head like a raging river. He barely heard the order Dempsey shouted.

  “Get him! He’s going to kill Jube!”

  Maybe, maybe not, but a second after Dempsey yelled that command, the toe of a boot caught Dan in the ribs. The vicious kick knocked him to the side and made him let go of Connolly.

  Strong hands clamped around his arms and jerked him to his feet. His dark hair fell over his eyes. Through it he saw a couple of men closing in on him from the front while two more held him from behind. He couldn’t see that pair, but the two in front of him he recognized as Box D cowboys named Stanton and Fenner. Even though they rode for the same brand, Dan didn’t consider either man a friend.

  He knew they were cronies of Jube Connolly’s, though, and he saw the anger on their faces. The men holding him were probably more of the same.

  He threw himself backward as hard as he could, staggering the men behind him, but their grips on him didn’t come loose. Dan raised a foot and drove his boot heel into Fenner’s belly as soon as the man was close enough. Fenner gasped and folded up.

  Stanton was in reach, too, but Dan didn’t get a chance to kick him. Stanton slammed a fist into Dan’s jaw and rocked his head back and to the side. A heartbeat later, Stanton’s other fist sank into Dan’s belly with enough force to sicken him. Stanton swung and hit him in the face again.

  “Lemme at him,” Fenner rasped as he recovered a little from the kick Dan had landed in his midsection. He bored in and crashed a left and a right into Dan’s face.

  A lot of shouting was going on, and Dan thought he heard Laura pleading with her husband to stop the beating, but he couldn’t be sure. The punches didn’t stop, though. Again and again, Stanton and Fenner hit him. Pain washed through Dan’s body. He felt blood dripping from his nose and mouth.

  “By God, that’s enough!” somebody bellowed. “That’s enough, I say!”

  The shout might not have done any good, but the boom of a shotgun did. Nobody could ignore that. The blows stopped, although the men holding Dan hung on to him.

  That was probably a good thing, because he would have fallen flat on his face if they had let go of him.

  Through slitted, swollen eyes, Dan saw Lew Martin stride up in front of him. The foreman held a shotgun. Wisps of powder smoke still curled from the right-hand barrel. The left barrel was still loaded and menacing.

  “There’s no need for you to interfere in this, Lew,” Dempsey snapped. “It’s a matter between the men.”

  “Men who ride for the same brand I do,” Lew said. “Men who are fixin’ to beat to death one of their own, a member of the same crew.”

  Jube Connolly had made it to his feet by now. Grimacing in pain because of his injured tongue, he rubbed his throat and said hoarsely, “Aw, Hartford ain’t one of us, Lew. He never has been, and you know it. He’s
been lookin’ down his nose at us ever since he rode in, and he’s nothin’ but a saddle tramp!”

  “And he assaulted my wife and was about to strike me,” Dempsey said. “I wouldn’t have let the men kill him, but he had a beating coming to him.”

  Laura began, “Abel, that’s not the way it—”

  Dempsey turned toward her so sharply that she took an involuntary step back.

  “I mean . . .”

  “Everyone here saw what happened,” Dempsey interrupted her again. He stalked over so that he was in front of Dan, shouldering Lew Martin aside as he did so. “You’re fired, Hartford. I’ll give Lew the wages you have coming, and he can pay you. I can’t stomach looking at you anymore. I want you off this ranch tonight, and if you’re caught on Box D range again, you’ll be considered a trespasser and my men will be within their rights to shoot you.” Dempsey raised his voice. “I think everyone here understands what I just told you. Do you?”

  “Yeah, I . . . reckon I understand,” Dan ground out. The words were slurred as he forced them through his bloody, swollen lips.

  “Good.” Dempsey jerked his head commandingly. “Get him out of my sight.” Then he turned away, put a smile on his face, and raised his hands as he went on, “Sorry for the interruption, folks. Nothing important, just a no-account cowboy getting too big for his britches. Let’s get back to the party, shall we?” He held out a hand to Laura. “A dance, my dear?”

  The men who had hold of Dan were already hustling him away, but he was able to glance back over his shoulder. He saw Laura standing there with her husband. All the color was drained out of her face. She hesitated . . .

  Then she reached out and took Dempsey’s hand.

  Dan groaned. What he had just seen hurt worse than any of the punches he’d endured tonight.

  CHAPTER FIVE

  The two riders jogging their horses along one of the trails that cut through the Tonto Basin were a study in contrasts.

  The one in the black, high-crowned hat was tall and lean, with a sun-browned face like a hawk and a thick black mustache that drooped over his wide mouth. He wore a cowhide vest and a white shirt and had chaps strapped on over his denim trousers. The trouser legs were stuck down inside high-topped black boots. The man carried a heavy, ivory-handled Colt in a black holster on his right hip.

  His companion was much shorter and stockier, facts that were evident even though both men were on horseback. This second man had a thatch of red hair under a thumbed-back brown Stetson, wore a buckskin shirt and whipcord trousers, and packed a Colt with plain walnut grips. His face was open and friendly, with a scattering of freckles across his nose and cheeks.

  The two riders had a couple of things in common. Each carried a Winchester in a saddle sheath, and their gazes were alert and intelligent as they looked around at the countryside they rode through.

  “Well, we’re back in Arizona Territory, Stovepipe,” the redhead commented.

  His gangling companion nodded slowly and drawled, “Yep, we appear to be.”

  “You reckon we’ll run into as much trouble as we did the last time we were here?”

  “You mean when we got tangled up with those fellas Bodine and Two Wolves?”1 The man called Stovepipe shook his head. “I hope not. That whole mess was plumb fatiguin’.”

  “You don’t fool me none. There’s nothing you like better than sticking that big ol’ nose of yours in some ruckus where it don’t belong.”

  “Are you makin’ disparagin’ comments about my countenance, Wilbur?”

  “No, I’m making disparaging comments about how you always poke around and stir things up until before you know it, folks are shootin’ at us!”

  Stovepipe reined in and sat up straighter in the saddle as he lifted his head to listen.

  “You mean like that?” he asked.

  Wilbur had tensed as well. He listened to the distant popping and banging for a moment and then said, “Not exactly. All that gunfire is a ways off. Somebody else besides us is gettin’ shot at for a change.”

  “Yeah, I think you’re right,” said Stovepipe. He heeled his Appaloosa into a faster pace.

  “Dadgum it!” Wilbur called. He hurried his dun after his partner’s Palouse. “You’re going the wrong way!”

  Stovepipe pointed and said, “I’m goin’ toward whoever’s burnin’ all that powder.”

  “That’s what I mean!”

  Wilbur’s objections didn’t stop him from pulling alongside his lanky companion. Both men rode like they had been born to the saddle, looking almost like centaurs as they galloped across the sage-dotted range.

  The flats they were crossing ended about half a mile away in a rocky bluff that had pine trees jutting from its top. Beyond it, far in the distance, the higher escarpment of the Mogollon Rim was visible.

  “The shots are comin’ from the other side of that bluff,” Stovepipe said, raising his voice over the drumming of hoofbeats so Wilbur could hear him.

  “Do you know what’s on the other side?”

  “Don’t have a clue,” answered Stovepipe with a grin. “That’s one more reason to go and have a look-see.”

  Wilbur muttered something Stovepipe couldn’t make out, but it didn’t really matter. The tall, lanky cowboy knew his old friend was just as curious about such things as he was. Wilbur just didn’t like to admit it, that’s all.

  As they drew closer to the bluff, Stovepipe’s keen eyes searched for a trail leading to the top. He spotted one and pointed it out to his redheaded companion. Their horses, both strong, spirited animals, took the steep trail with relative ease, and a few moments later, they rode out onto the tree-covered bluff.

  The terrain was mostly flat up here, too, though some green hills rose a couple of miles away, which Stovepipe saw as the trees thinned out some and the landscape opened out into grassy pastures. Brown spots here and there marked areas where the vegetation was sparser, but that was to be expected in this semiarid climate. There was enough graze to make this good ranching country.

  Stovepipe reined in, pointed again, and said, “Yonderways.”

  “Yeah, I see ’em,” said Wilbur. “One man being chased by . . . how many would you say? Eight or ten riders?”

  “At least that many,” Stovepipe responded.

  “And that don’t sit well with you, does it?”

  Stovepipe shook his head and said, “Nope.”

  “Even though we don’t have a shadow of an idea what it’s all about. For all we know, that hombre bein’ chased may be the worst varmint in the whole territory.”

  “Might be,” drawled Stovepipe, “but I still don’t like ten-to-one odds.”

  With that, he jabbed his boot heels into the Appaloosa’s flanks and sent the horse galloping forward again.

  The seemingly desperate chase was taking place in front of them, moving from right to left about a quarter of a mile away. At that distance, even Stovepipe’s eagle-eyed vision couldn’t make out many details. He had a good pair of field glasses in his saddlebags that would have told him a lot, but he had a hunch that it wasn’t a good time to stop and study the matter.

  Over the years, Stovepipe had learned to play his hunches, too.

  He didn’t look back as he rode. He knew Wilbur would be pounding along just behind him. The two of them had been best friends and trail partners for a long time as they drifted from here to there across the frontier. If there was one thing in this world Stovepipe counted on, it was knowing that Wilbur would back his play to the very best of his ability.

  Stovepipe looked to his left. About half a mile away, the ground broke up into a mess of little canyons and draws. The fugitive would stand a lot better chance of giving the slip to his pursuers if he could reach those breaks. As things stood, though, it appeared that the men would catch up to him before he could get there.

  “We need to slow those fellas down!” Stovepipe called over his shoulder to Wilbur as he grasped his Winchester and drew the repeater out of its sheath.

&
nbsp; Stovepipe looped the reins around the saddle horn and guided the Palouse with his knees as he raised the Winchester to his shoulder. He didn’t expect to hit anybody at this range, from the back of a galloping horse, but on the other hand, he didn’t want to hit any of the pursuers. Despite instinctively sticking up for the underdog, he didn’t plan on gunning down anybody without a good reason. He just hoped to scatter the group of riders chasing after the lone man. That might give him and Wilbur a chance to find out what was going on here.

  The rifle cracked as Stovepipe triggered three swift shots, working the Winchester’s lever between each round. He aimed really high, knowing the bullets would drop some as they traveled. He wanted to make sure they went over the heads of the pursuers.

  Wilbur’s rifle began speaking as he swung out to Stovepipe’s right. He fired three times as well. Stovepipe hoped a few of the bullets came close enough for the riders to hear them whistling over their heads.

  An instant later, one of the men threw his arms in the air and pitched out of the saddle. He landed in a limp heap.

  Wilbur yelped a surprised oath.

  “Stovepipe, did you see that?” he asked. “One of those fellas looked like he was hit!”

  “You shot over their heads, didn’t you?”

  “I thought I did! Blast it, I didn’t mean to hurt anybody, let alone kill one of ’em!”

  “We don’t know he’s dead,” Stovepipe pointed out.

  “He sure landed like he was!”

  Stovepipe couldn’t argue with that. He had seen men die from being shot—more than he liked to think about, actually—and the way this man had fallen bore a distinct resemblance to that unfortunate outcome.

  He and Wilbur had accomplished their goal, however. The rest of the pursuers reined in and stopped chasing the man they’d been after. A couple of them dashed their horses back to the place where the man had fallen, obviously intent on checking on him.

  The others swung around and pounded toward Stovepipe and Wilbur. Smoke spurted from gun muzzles.