Brand of the Hunted Page 8

  There were suddenly more shouts in the night. Jessup and Farrel and the others, moving forward along the curving side of the herd where it bulged as it was fed by the mass of animals crushing forward from behind. As the herd curved away from him, Neil urged his stud forward, away from the sheer rock face at his back.

  ‘Hiiiya! Hiii-ya! Git over … Git over!’ The shrill cries echoed in his ears as the rest of the men surged along by him. They must have known that now there was nothing more they could do. The herd would continue along the trail until they were exhausted, when they would stop. If the wagons were not under cover now, then they were finished and nothing in heaven or on earth could save them.

  As the minutes passed there came a lessening in the crash of the herd as the last of the stragglers went by. The guns stopped their hammering roar. No point now in continuing to fire. If they hadn’t got the leaders, the rear would never change their onward rush. Once the herd had moved by, he made himself go forward to where the smashed and splintered remains of the wagon still lay in the middle of the trail. It was now something virtually unrecognisable. The canvas had been torn to shreds that fluttered in the breeze, and the wooden upright had been splintered and crushed, the wheels torn from the axles and ground into the dirt. Yet there was still someone alive in there. Neil heard the low groan quite distinctly, although a second fled before his mind accepted the fact that everyone had not been killed outright. It seemed inconceivable to him that anyone could have lived through that pounding rush but — Within seconds he had slid from the saddle, was yelling at Farrel to join him. His hands tore with a desperate urgency at the sodden canvas strips that covered the debris. Blinking his eyes, he tried to see in the gloom. Farrel dropped to the ground a couple of yards away, came running forward, gave the trampled red thing in the middle of the trail only a cursory glance. Then he was on one knee beside Neil, tugging at the weight of the splintered wagon.

  ‘Reckon there’s somebody trapped inside there — still alive,’ muttered Neil harshly. ‘Heard ’em cry out a moment ago.’

  ‘Hell, they can’t be unhurt,’ said the other. He shook his head slowly, wonderingly.

  Neil knew what was in the cattleman’s mind. Under that stamping wall of bone and muscle, nothing could have escaped unscathed. He pulled hard at wood and metal. The groan came again and he was able to locate the sound in the darkness. Then his outstretched hand touched a woman’s head. She moaned and sucked in her breath hard. His fingers drifted over her shoulders then down to her arm, and he felt the shudder pass through her at his touch.

  ‘She’s here, Farrel,’ he said tightly. ‘I think her arm is broken. It may be trapped under the beam. Better try to lift it. Careful now!’

  Together they lifted the heavy beam which pinned the woman’s arm down. She uttered another loud moan, then was silent. Neil bent, listened for a moment, then nodded as he heard the harsh whistle of air rasping in and out of her lungs. She had fainted. In the circumstances that was perhaps the best thing that could have happened. Now at least she would feel nothing when they came to move her.

  Carefully they managed to free her, to lift her clear of the wagon. In the dull wash of yellow moonlight, Neil recognised her. Claire Vance, riding with her husband to a new life in California. He felt a sharp tightening of his throat muscles. That would be Tom, her husband, lying out there among the rocks a few feet away. Whatever happened, she must not come round and see him.

  ‘Let’s get her away from here,’ he said tightly, ‘before she wants to know what happened to her husband.’

  ‘What about kids?’ asked Farrel harshly.

  ‘None. Damned good thing, too. They’d have been killed in this mess.’

  Carefully he lifted the woman on to his saddle, then led the sorrel along the trail to where the wagons had moved towards the rocks. The herd had gone, thundering onward in a straight line, in their blind, blundering rush which would carry them for many miles before they finally halted. At the back of his mind there was a sharpening sense of anger, a blinding thing, which urged him to deliver the woman to the train and then turn, ride back and try to hunt down those murderers who had started that stampede. But common sense told him that not only would those men have moved off into the darkness of the plain, but he would be needed more urgently at the wagon train.

  They made slow progress along the rough trail and by the time they reached the rocks the train had begun to move back out into more open ground again. They had been lucky, fantastically so. Far luckier than he would have ever thought possible. Jackson had located the small side canyon halfway along the rocky path through the hills and had somehow succeeded in turning the train into it. Here they had been perfectly safe from the thundering hooves of the steers as they plunged past along the main trail. But there were a few steers scattered on the trail near the entrance to the small side canyon which told of a desperate fight to keep the crazed animas at bay and prevent them turning.

  Clem Jackson stepped forward as Farrel rode up, then turned and eyed Neil curiously as he walked forward with the woman lying over the saddle. His thick black brows went up into a mutely questioning line over the dark eyes.

  ‘She’ll be all right once we’ve fixed her arm,’ Neil told him quietly. ‘At least I couldn’t find any other bones broken. But the wagon was smashed completely and she’s lucky to be alive.’

  ‘What about Tom Vance?’ boomed the other.

  Neil shook his head slowly. ‘At least he never knew what hit him. He was thrown from the wagon when it hit a boulder and split the wheel. He must have died at once. If he didn’t, then he was unconscious by the time the herd got to him.’

  ‘I’ll get one of the women to look after her.’ Jackson gave a quick nod, then reached up and lifted the woman down in his huge arms as if she were a baby and had no weight at all. He carried her into the rocks where the rest of the men and women were gathered. They had all had a shaking experience and it would be some time before they got over it, Neil reflected. But for Claire Vance, things would never be the same again. There would be no new life in California for her now. She would never even know what had happened to her husband, and for him there would be no proper grave. He felt a sudden weariness in him which was something more than the tiredness that came from the long night and the endless battle with that stampeding herd.

  ‘One more piece of trouble like that and the train will be finished before we’ve gone another fifty miles,’ said Farrel. He built a smoke, stood quite still watching the rest of the folk sitting among the rocks, oblivious of the cold night air that blew about them. It was as if they could sense the tragedy of what had happened, knew that someone had died during the night, and for them, as for Claire Vance, it would never be quite the same again. They had seen death in one of its more terrible aspects, death in the form of a thundering, bawling wall of steers, something primitive and frightening, old to the cattlemen, but new to the others.

  Neil sighed, dragged himself to his feet. There was stubble on his chin and the back of his hand rasped over it as he rubbed his face.

  Jackson came back. He stood looking at the wagon nearby for a long moment, then said: ‘We may have to rest up for tomorrow morning and carry out some repairs, Roberts. There’ll be rims to be fitted to the wheels of some of the wagons, and fresh axles put on at least two of them before we go any further.’

  ‘It might be best if we did rest up for the morning.’ Neil nodded. ‘I don’t think there will be any further danger from the herd. By morning it will be miles away from here. But as for the men with it, that’s a different matter. We’ll need to be on our guard in case they try to attack us. I figure we may even get a visit from Sherman himself with some of his hired killers.’

  ‘You know this man personally?’

  ‘We’ve met before,’ Neil admitted. ‘The same goes for Hollard. I reckon those two are in cahoots now that they know we’re moving across this stretch of country. They’ll do anything in their power to stop us.’


  Daybreak found them huddled around the fires. A cold wind had blown up after midnight and the clouds which had begun to gather, blotting out the yellow face of the moon, brought rain and discomfort. There was hot coffee in the boiler over the fire and they ate their breakfast hurriedly, before starting repairs to the wagons. The threat of danger still hung over them all. It was a tangible thing that could be felt and men had only to look up to where the two men were standing atop the tall columns of rock nearby to know that it might come at any moment.

  Claire Vance was lying in one of the wagons, her arm fixed in a sling. Neil had climbed on board to take a look at her twice that morning, found her each time staring up at the sodden canvas over her head, her eyes open and wide, with only a vague emptiness in them. She neither turned nor seemed to hear him when he spoke to her and, after a few moments, he climbed down from the wagon into the pouring rain, and went back to the others.

  ‘You figure she’ll be all right, Roberts?’ asked Jackson harshly, the second time he came back. ‘I saw her a little while ago and she didn’t seem to know I was there.’

  ‘Shock,’ said Neil briefly. ‘It can do strange things at times. Maybe she still thinks that her husband is alive. Sooner or later she’ll come out of it, and that will be the time when the pain will strike. I’ve seen it happen before. The mind pulls itself behind some dark curtain and shuts itself off from reality. As soon as we get away from here and that arm of hers heals a little, we’ll get one of the women to break the news to her.’

  Jackson nodded. They went back to work on the wagons fitting the new rims to the splintered wheels, checking the axles, the canvas and the traces. The rain continued to fall in a dark, hazy curtain from the heavens, so that there seemed no place where they could find dryness or comfort. Weary men who had been awake all night. Gaunt and haggard men who shook the rain from their hats and pulled their coats and jackets more tightly about their bodies as the cold wind blew down from the north, down from the distant mountains that loomed on the skyline, just a little closer now.

  Shortly before noon one of the look-outs on the rocks yelled harshly. Neil glanced up at the man as he pointed to the west. Then he scrambled up the rocks to where the other stood, his gun whispering from its holster.

  Ten riders had checked their mounts on a rise of ground to the west, men who looked out towards the hills. They seemed to be men who had ridden hard and ridden fast. The leader lifted a hand, urged the others forward again, and in that moment Neil recognised him. Jesse Sherman. There had been no mistaking that tall figure.

  ‘Looks like trouble,’ he said casually to the man standing by his side. ‘I’ll warn the others. You stay here and keep an eye on them.’ He made his way down the rocky slope again, uneasy and apprehensive. For the moment he knew that these men did not intend to attack them. Had that been the case, they would have moved up unseen, keeping to the rocks and ravines which split the country in that direction.

  ‘Sherman and some of his killers are headed this way,’ he told Jackson. ‘I doubt if they mean trouble just now,’ he added, as the other reached for his Winchester. ‘But I’m interested to know why they’ve come like this.’

  Almost without direction, his hand loosed the gun in his holster. There was the sound of horses in the near distance, riding towards them, then the riders, bunched close together, came into view, Sherman leading them. He reined his mount a few yards away, stayed the men with him with a gesture of his hand. There was a sneer over the darkly handsome features as they stared down at Neil.

  ‘Somehow, I figured it would be you, Roberts, leading this wagon train over my land.’ There was a touch of menace in the other’s cold voice. ‘I reckoned we would meet again some day.’

  ‘There ain’t no law that says a man can’t move over this stretch of country,’ broke in Jackson in his loud, booming voice.

  ‘I’m the law in these parts,’ said Sherman tightly. ‘All of this country that you can see, right to the horizons, belongs to me. If I say that you can’t cross it, then the law backs me up. Could be you’d like me to send some of my men into Twin Creeks and get the sheriff out here.’

  Neil grinned sardonically. ‘There ain’t much doubt in my mind, Sherman, that the sheriff there will do exactly as you tell him to. If he don’t, then it won’t be hard to replace him.’

  ‘Just what are you insinuatin’, Roberts?’ snarled the other. For the moment his right hand hung poised over the gun at his hip, his eyes holding the promise of death in them.

  ‘Just try it,’ said Neil warningly. ‘You’ll be a dead man before you can get that gun clear of leather — and you know it. And if you’re banking on one of your gunslingers getting me first, I reckon it might pay you to take a look around you. There are rifles pointed at every one of you and these men won’t hesitate to shoot you down like the rattlers you all are. They ain’t forgotten the way your men set that herd on to them last night. We lost a good man then, and there’s a woman lying back there with a broken arm and her husband gone.

  ‘These folk ain’t asking much of anybody. Only the right to keep on moving until they get to California — and neither you, nor anybody else is going to stop ’em.’

  He saw Sherman’s gaze slide from side to side, saw the other stiffen a little and then drop his hand swiftly to his side as he saw the grim-visaged men who stood around the trail, the Winchesters and Colts rock-steady in their hands, their fingers bar-straight on the triggers. There was a long moment of silence on the trail. Close at hand a horse snickered, but that was the only sound that broke the clinging, heart-stopping stillness. It needed only one of the men with Sherman to make a wrong move to start those guns hammering, to fill the air with death.

  With an effort Sherman forced himself to relax. A smile spread slowly over his features. ‘I ain’t going to forget this, Roberts,’ he said softly, tonelessly, his voice oddly flat. ‘I got a score to settle with you from way back and I intend to do it. You won’t slip through my fingers this time as you did before. As for this wagon train, you’re all fools if you believe this man and think that you will get through to California.’

  ‘Your herd didn’t finish us, and the same will go for your men if you try anything,’ Jackson said harshly. ‘We mean to ride through here to the mountains and you ain’t going to stop us.’

  ‘We’ll see about that. If it’s trouble you want, then by God you’ll all get it. You’ll begin to wish that you’d stayed back East where you were safe before I’m through with you.’

  Before any of the others could speak, he had jerked the reins in his hands with a savage motion, wheeling his mount cruelly. He rode off along the narrow trail, the men following him. Slowly the thunder of their horses died into the distance and there was only the endless sound of the rain as it hit the hard rocks around them.

  Neil drew in a deep breath and ran a dry tongue around equally dry lips. He stared at Jackson. ‘I reckon we’d better get everything ready as quickly as we can and move out soon. I won’t feel safe until we hit Twin Creeks. That’s on the edge of Sherman’s territory.’

  ‘Reckon we can get supplies there?’ asked Farrel. ‘We’re low on flour.’

  ‘If we get through I reckon we can,’ said Neil dully. He turned and went back to the waiting wagons. Throughout the rest of the morning and the long, grey, wet afternoon, they worked, ignoring the rain, the cold and the discomfort. The rain continued to fall endlessly, huge drops that soon turned the trail into a stretching river of mud. Overhead the clouds were low and thick, piling up from the western horizons in large masses. There had been no sign of the sun all that day, no sign of any let up in the rains. By late afternoon they were able to hitch up the horses and start the wagons rolling.

  5. Twin Creeks

  It was ten days later and nearly two hundred miles by the time the wagon train rolled into the township of Twin Creeks. In the hot dusty sunlight the town seemed asleep with the heat haze of high noon hanging over it. The wagons had stopped half a mile fro
m the edge of the town and Neil and Jackson had ridden into the town to check on supplies. They reined their mounts at the end of the long street that stretched clear in front of them to where it moved all the way through the town and out the far side. The buildings had been erected on either side of that single street, stores and saloons, hotels and livery stables.

  It was a town that was similar to hundreds of others in the west. A frontier town which pinpointed where the tide of civilisation, moving westward, had halted at some time in the recent past and men had set up a community here, to act as a bulwark against the Indians, who had ridden these plains long before the white man had come and wrested the land from them. Now, even though the white man had come, the place was still almost as wild as it had been in those early days when the frontier had stopped right there and there had been nothing beyond, to the west, but empty desert and unexplored mountains, herds of buffalo that roamed the plains in their millions.

  The lie of the land on either side of Twin Creeks was of two different types. To the east stretched the rough country which merged gradually into the lush grasslands of the Sherman spread, with low rolling ridges that blended perfectly with the background. Westward lay the tall hills, a rugged country of rock and sharp-cut ravines, here pinnacles and boulders and buttes were all jumbled together, tumbling over each other as they lay spread out to join the tall mountains that spiked the horizon. The town lay in a wide hollow between these two strikingly opposite terrains, with the clear water of the two creeks that ran down from the hills to the west and gave the town its name, shining brilliantly in the hot sunlight.