Part 25 (1/2)

Blade left that sentence unfinished as he took another swallow of whiskey. He sank deep into thought again. It was clear something was bothering him, and Luke had the feeling it wasn't Melody's supposed plan to get herself back in Lantz's good graces.

”It was a trick.” Blade said that almost defiantly, as though he was trying to convince himself.

Quite suddenly Luke was certain that Blade knew something about the rustlers. He wondered if Blade could be the insider who kept the rustlers informed. But that didn't make sense. Blade wouldn't help people steal from his own father. That would take money out of his own pocket. Besides, stampeding the herd, even if Lantz's men recaptured every animal, would cost Lantz thousands of dollars in lost weight. Still, Blade knew something. Luke took a sip from his own whiskey and settled back to wait. Blade would soon be drunk enough to tell anything he knew. Luke got up to stretch his legs. He knew how to play the waiting gamehis job required itbut he occasionally got impatient. He walked over to the window and looked out. Clouds obscured the moon for the third night in a row. He expected rain soon. All the buildings were quiet and dark. Lantz had every available hand out rounding up the scattered herd. That left no explanation as to why Luke saw a pinpoint of light on the far side of one of the buildings. Nor did it explain why the light moved and then disappeared. One of the hands must have come back. But they never used lanterns. There was always enough light to see once your eyes adjusted to the dark.

Luke's hand instinctively reached for the gun at his side. He turned, walked quickly to the gun rack, and took down a rifle. He checked it to make certain it was loaded.

Blade peered at Luke. ”What are you doing?”

”Someone's outside.”

Blade snorted. ”Pa's got nearly thirty hands on the place. Someone's always outside.”

”I saw a light.”

”It's darker than the bowels of h.e.l.l out tonight,” Blade said.

”Has it occurred to you that those rustlers may have run off the cows to get the hands away from the house?”

”What for?”

”Your pa's convinced Melody's foreman is out to kill you. If she arranged the stampede to get back into his good graces, couldn't he also be using it to draw the men away from the house so he'd have a better chance to kill you?”

”Is that how you get work?” Blade demanded scornfully. ”Scaring old men with sons to protect?”

”How do you explain that fire?”

The disdainful look wiped from his face, Blade lurched to his feet and staggered across the room. He propped himself up against the window frame and peered into the night.

”I don't see any fire,” he said.

”They're two of them now,” Luke said. ”Look over there, beyond the small corral.”

Two small pinpoints of flickering light grew in size.

”It's the haystacks,” Blade said, puzzled.

”It's not the haystacks I'm worried about,” Luke said. ”It's the barn.”

Small tongues of flame could be seen lapping at the edges of the roof. Luke backed away from the window so he'd be out of the line of any potential gunfire. ”Get down.”

”Get down, h.e.l.l!” Blade said. ”I'm going to see if I can put it out.”

Luke jerked Blade off balance and into a chair. ”You're not going anywhere.”

”Are you too good to put out a fire, or do you charge more for manual labor? That's our hay, our barn. What'll we do this winter without them?”

”Let the cows fend for themselves. You and I are staying right here.”

The scornful look was back. ”You're a coward,” Blade said. ”You're afraid someone might shoot at you if you go outside.” Blade lurched to his feet. ”I'm not frightened by any cowardly barn-burner. I'll put enough lead in him to sink him all the way to h.e.l.l.”

Luke pushed Blade back into the chair. ”You aren't going anywhere. What reason could anybody have for setting a fire unless they're trying to get at you?”

”You're making this up, trying to hide your cowardice.”

”If you go out there, anybody could shoot you from ambush, and you'd never even know they were there. If I go outside, they can rush this place and fill you full of enough lead to sink you a lot deeper than h.e.l.l. That stampede may not have been a setup, but I'm sure this is. And killing you is what they're hoping to do.”

As if to underscore Luke's statement, two bullets shattered the gla.s.s in one of the windows. Luke shoved Blade to the floor, put out both the lanterns in the room, and took a position next to the window. Several shots followed, but they were all fired through the same window, probably to keep Luke and Blade pinned down. Meanwhile, the fires gained a strong hold on the haystacks and the barn. Unless the rain came quickly, it would be a total loss.

”Why should anyone want to kill me?” Blade asked.

Luke heard honest wonder in his voice. The boy really didn't understand. ”You killed Belle Jordan's foreman and tried to kill her son. That seems like more than enough reason to me.”

The rain started, but too late to save the barn.

”Would you want to kill me?” Blade asked.

”If you'd shot me, you'd have been dead within an hour.”

Blade looked hard at Luke. Something he saw in his gaze seemed to give him the understanding he'd lacked until now. Luke doubted it would change anything, but at least Blade knew the stakes were a lot higher than he'd thought. He was no longer a kid. He was playing a man's game. If caught, he would receive a man's penalty.

This was the second time Lantz had come by to see Melody in three days. She couldn't avoid seeing him because she and Chet were about to go riding. Lantz caught them at the corral. Mercifully, he was too occupied with the attacks on his herd and his ranch to press her to reconsider her refusal to marry him. He even talked to Chet without threatening to kill him.

”The posse didn't find a d.a.m.ned thing but the charred remains of a campfire,” Lantz complained to Melody, ”the one your foreman said he made a few days ago. They disappeared into thin air, like they always do.”

”Chet thinks the gang must be made up of cowhands working at the various ranches,” Melody said. ”He says that would account for them disappearing so easily and for always knowing where everybody's going to be and what they're doing.”

Lantz cast Chet an angry look. ”Your foreman may be a fast draw, but he's a fool. Our own men couldn't be stealing from us without us knowing. Besides, where are they taking the cattle? They must have stolen two hundred head by now.”

”They're holding them up the canyon,” Chet said. ”I found the place. It's got plenty of water and gra.s.s. n.o.body goes up that far except at roundup time. The walls are so steep, they're like a natural fortress.”

”How are they getting out?”

”I found a narrow game trail,” Chet said. ”It would be slow work, but a man working steadily could move a lot of cows in a month. Once out of the canyon, they've got the whole northern half of Texas to hide in. I imagine they're working with some rancher who rebrands the cows, then runs them in with his herd.”

”That's crazy,” Lantz said. ”I went all up and down that canyon just after Bob Jordan settled here. There's no way out.”

Melody worried that Chet would be angry over Lantz's rude dismissal of his idea, but he didn't seem the least upset.

”It's in a side canyon,” Chet said. ”You wouldn't find it unless you were looking for it. I'm sure it's been worked on, but I'm just as sure it was there from the beginning. It's most likely discovering that trail that gave the rustlers the idea in the first place. That's another reason for suspecting our own cowhands. They're the only ones who can ride in and out of that canyon without causing suspicion.”

”It's time you hired yourself a real foreman,” Lantz said to Melody, ”and let this man go back to his murdering ways. If he has his way, the whole county will soon be at each other's throats.”

”Did the fire do much damage?” Melody wanted to get Lantz's mind off the rustlers.

”I lost a good barn and hay I'll find hard to replace.”

”Do you know who did it?”

”No.”