The chunky cowhand knew that rage had spurred Kirk’s horse to a gallop and that physical pain had reined him to a slow walk.

  “Shore is a funny feller,” he muttered to himself as his buckskin fell a half-length behind. “One minute yuh wanta hosswhup ’im, an’ thuh next yuh feel sorry’s hell for ’im.”

  But what was Montrose up to? Had Mrs. Kirk been so frightened of her husband coming home and learning that she had turned the water on to Rangoon’s spread that she had run away? Maybe Rangoon had paid her enough so that she could take Bobbie and go back to Ohio.

  Or … was the foreman deliberately throwing Jerry Kirk off the track of Frank Adams by insinuating that Rangoon or Clint Andrews or Rangoon’s daughter, Jean, had taken Lucy Kirk and her son to the Split X spread?

  Chuckaluck drew in a deep breath of the cool, clean air, let it out in a sigh as he remembered again the letter in the mail box. One thing was certain … Lucky Kirk had left the neat cabin on the mesa under some terrible strain, for he knew that no woman would pass that mailbox without looking in to see if there was a letter.

  CHAPTER VI

  The corrugated clouds had been swept from the sky directly above and were huddled together on the eastern horizon, leaving the near-full moon a clear path to shed its soft rays upon the plains and lull them into forgetfulness of the day’s searing heat from the sun.

  Neither of the riders spoke until they had passed through the gate of the ZB range and were on the road to Marfa. Jerry Kirk rode with his body jack-knifed, his arms around the saddlehorn and his bruised face resting on his forearms, his horse’s hooves clopping slowly on the gentle descent.

  The eerie howl of a coyote from the mountain behind them jarred the quiet on the trail. Kirk slowly pulled himself erect, reined his horse in and waited until Chuckaluck’s buckskin came abreast of his mount.

  “I reckon you’ve been wonderin’ what in hell all this is about,” Kirk said wearily.

  Chuckaluck didn’t reply for a moment. His shrewd mind warned him that from now on he had to be cautious. He said, casually, “Thuh sheriff tol’ me a little aboot it right after yuh rode off back there where yuh was readin’ thuh letter. Reckon he’s got thuh scarred-face galoot settin’ on thuh roan picked out fo’ thuh neck-tie pahty.”

  “Beats me what he was doin’ in my house an’ why he lied about it,” said Kirk gloomily. “Said his name was Twister.”

  “What’d he lie aboot mostly?”

  “Claimed he saw a sign saying it was a short-cut to Marfa when he rode the trail to my place. That ain’t possible because the sign he claims he saw is right ahead of us. You’ll see it in a minute.”

  Chuckaluck’s round face squeezed up into little hills of flesh and valleys of tension as they neared the sign. He said, “Shore. I saw thuh sign m’se’f when I rode over from Marfa. Why do yuh reckon he’d tell a lie like that?”

  “Damned if I know,” said Kirk dejectedly. “We’ll take the short-cut. But you ain’t heard nothing yet. When I walked into my house everything was fixed up to make it look like Lucy had just stepped out for a minute after setting the table for her and Bobbie to eat. But at dark they hadn’t come back.”

  “Shore enough!” Chuckaluck exclaimed. “Maybe that Twister got there just at noon an’ scairt her so with his ugly face she run off and was scairt tuh come back.”

  “Lucy don’t scare easy,” Kirk said firmly. “She could stand up to …” his voice trailed off.

  “Don’ forget she mebbe hadn’ never seen a feller what looked like ol’ satan hisse’f on one side o’ his face like I seen in thuh twig-fire light tuhnight back yonduh.”

  “But he claims he didn’t leave Fort Davis till ten o’clock this morning, and that means he couldn’t have got to my place much before sundown, no matter how hard he rode.”

  “It plumb beats me,” Chuckaluck said. He heaved a heavy sigh and went on, “I reckon yuh don’t take serious what thuh fo’man o’ thuh ZB said aboot somebuddy name o’ Rangoon yuh should see.”

  “Paul Rangoon,” grated Kirk. “Richest rancher in the country. When I see Paul Rangoon it’ll be when I’ve got a gun in my hand ready to shoot.”

  “You an’ him have a run-in aboot thuh watuh like Montrose said?”

  “He’s a dirty tight-wad,” said Kirk wildly. “There’s not much water in this country and one of the prettiest mountain streams in West Texas comes off that mesa I homesteaded. Never dries up all summer. Runs enough water to take care of all the stock the Split X grazes in sixteen sections.” Kirk’s body was bent in an arc, his hands on the saddlehorn and pressing down as he lifted his lean body to take the jolts of a slightly faster pace the horses had taken.

  Chuckaluck had resumed his accustomed slouch in the saddle, but his head was up, his mind alert. “Watuh’s wuth more’n a gold mine in a dry place like this,” he said solemnly.

  “That’s exactly what I figured when I homesteaded the mesa,” Kirk said slowly. Suddenly he laughed, a hard, mirthless laugh that ended in a groan of pain. “It was right there all the time and Rangoon was using the water, but he never bothered to stake a claim on it. So when I stake my claim he acts like I’m a thief that stole somethin’ that belonged to him. He got fightin’ mad when I told him he’d have to start paying me rent for the use of my spring water.”

  “When was that?”

  “I come down here from Ohio about two years ago and was lookin’ around. Found the mesa and homesteaded it two years ago this fall. Rangoon tried to run me off my legal claim, and then threatened to starve me out when the law stepped in and backed me up.”

  “How’d yuh figure tuh make ’im pay? Yuh couldn’ stop him from usin’ thuh watuh if it run down acrost his range.”

  “That’s where I had him sewed up. You haven’t see’ my mesa so you don’t know how she lays. There’s a ridge runs up the slope dividing the drainage off to the north and the south. The spring originally ran over the north side and down into the Split X. When Rangoon got stingy and refused to pay me I ditched it over so it ran down the other way. Left him dried up all last year.”

  “An’ he still didn’ pay?” marvelled Chuckaluck.

  “He’s a stubborn old coot. Knew I didn’t have much money to go on, and with Lucy having a baby, I reckon he figured I’d starve out soon and he’d get it back without paying. That’s why I left home to go to work when spring broke and I thought Lucy’d make it all right by herself.”

  “From what Montrose said, seems like Rangoon’s got thuh watuh back. D’yuh reckon he paid yore wife for it?”

  “I don’t know,” Jerry Kirk groaned. “I don’t understand it. When I rode up there to-night I found the stream runnin’ back in its original channel down to the Split X.” He fell silent for a moment, gently twisting his shoulders as though to ease some aching muscle, then continued:

  “There’s another funny thing I don’t understand. This Twister yahoo claims he caught some feller letting the water out of a reservoir on the Split X that was dry all last summer. He says it was full, so that means it must’ve been running almost since the time I left home. Takes about two months to fill that tank.”

  “Yuh reckon if yore wife had made a deal with Rangoon unbeknownst to yuh an’ then heard yuh was comin’ back she would of got scairt yuh’d find out an’ she got some gent … hired ’im … tuh drain thuh water tank?” Chuckaluck asked delicately.

  “I don’t know,” Kirk grated. “Might be she’d do that. But … where has she gone? If that feller Twister is tellin’ the truth, who’d move that Marfa sign to send him up my road … and why?”

  “Montrose mentioned a puncher name o’ Clint Andrews,” Chuckaluck reminded him. “Mebbe he was thuh one persuaded yore wife tuh turn thuh watuh back. It’d be a big feathuh in his cap, him bein’ a noo fo’man on thuh Split X.”

  “Lucy’s not the kind to let a man sweet-talk her into anything, even if he is as handsome as that lying ZB foreman said he was,” Kirk raged.

  “Waal, I was jus’ thinkin’ aboot yore bein’ so techy aboot Frank Adams,” Chuckaluck said awkwardly.

  “Damn it, a feller never knows where he stands with a woman,” Kirk snapped. “You married?”

  “Naw,” Chuckaluck said hastily.

  “Reckon I’m all mixed up,” Kirk admitted forlornly. “Somebody’s doing a hell of a lot of lying and I don’t know who it is. Soon’s I can get my hands on a gun I mean to find out.”

  “How much money did yuh ast Paul Rangoon to pay fo’ thuh use of watuh he’s been thinkin’ b’longed tuh him all these years?”

  “Only five hundred a year. I offered to sell out my claim for five thousand. Like I said, he could’ve homesteaded the mesa any time in the last twenty years if he’d had a mind to. All I did was to stand on my legal rights.”

  Chuckaluck nodded, his round face twisted into grim lines. He understood perfectly how Paul Rangoon had felt about a man coming in and squatting on the only source of water for his cattle. Men had been killed in the west for doing exactly what Jerry Kirk had done, and men would be killed again for the same reason. Although the legal rights were with the squatter, there was an unwritten law of the open range that decreed the water running across a man’s land was free for him to use. A man couldn’t be blamed for trying to turn such a situation as Jerry Kirk’s to his own advantage, but he had to be prepared to suffer the consequences.

  For a while both men rode in silence, the clop-clop of the horses’ hooves sounding loud in the stillness, dust rolling up from the trail and drifting in the cool night breeze. The lopsided, near-full moon rode serenely in a clear sky, toward the west, casting eerie slanting shadows beside the riders and the dark, stunted growth of cat-claw and mesquite. The lonely howl of a coyote echoed from cliffs behind them and gradually died away in the distance.

  Chuckaluck broke the silence by asking, “Did yore wife have any real clost frien’s where she mought a-gone to visut? Wimmin frien’s,” he amended hastily.

  “There’s only the Hodges live close. And they weren’t friends to Lucy. Women folks out here didn’t take to her. They thought she was stuck-up, I reckon, because she was raised like a lady back in Ohio.”

  “From Ohio, yeh. I heard yuh readin’ that letter from thuh lawyers an’ what yuh said to thuh sheriff.”

  “And now her old skinflint daddy has died and left her all his farms. Damn him. Why couldn’t the old devil’ve died three months ago? Then none of this wouldn’t have happened.” Jerry Kirk was raging again, his tone sharp with hatred.

  “Reckon yuh mean by that yuh wouldn’ of had tuh leave yore wife an’ baby tuh go to work an’ rassle up some money tuh keep ’em goin’,” said Chuckaluck sympathetically. “Sheriff tol’ me a li’l aboot it,” he added quickly. His cherubic face was crimped with worry lines. He had to be careful not to mention anything except what he had learned in Kirk’s presence.

  “Sheriff talks too much an’ does too little,” Kirk spat out angrily.

  “Did yuh an’ Frank Adams have a run-in like his, fo’man said aboot thuh time yuh left?”

  “We had a little talk the mornin’ I rode off to San Angelo,” said Kirk coldly. “I chanced to meet him at his gate that day, and I saw a funny look on his face when I told him Lucy and Bobbie was stayin’ up at the cabin alone. I reckon he thought he was bein’ pretty sly when he said he’d sorta look after ’em while I was gone.

  “That’s when I told him,” Kirk went on viciously. “that he wasn’t to set foot on my homestead … nor none of his riders … while I wasn’t there. We had it hot and heavy for a few minutes.”

  “An’ yuh think mebbe he rode up there anyways?” Chuckaluck poured salt in the open wound and got the violent reaction he hoped for.

  “I don’t know what to think,” the tortured husband admitted with a near-sob. “There was this rannie I was having some whisky with in San Angelo. Said he’d heard talk. I should’ve made Montrose let me search Adams’ house.”

  “Near as I could see,” Chuckaluck told him coolly, “yuh wasn’ in no very good condition to make Montrose do nothin’ when he got th’ough mawlin’ yuh ’round. Seems t’me yuh got yorese’f a powerful hot-headed temper,” he went on evenly, “an’ mebbe yore wife did go up tuh Adams’ place an’ hide ’till yuh cooled off somewhut when yuh learnt aboot thuh watuh. Even if Frank Adams wasn’ tuh home hisse’f, like thuh fo’man said.”

  Kirk jerked his sore torso erect. “You’d better keep your damned mouth shut,” he grated. “I’ll go back there with a gun next time.” He slumped forward again and bent his head until it rested on his hands which were gripping the saddlehorn.

  Again they rode in silence. Chuckaluck saw the younger man’s body quivering with impotent rage. Chuckaluck had no way of knowing what a man felt when his wife and baby were missing, and he regretted his harsh words to the suffering young husband. He was searching for just the right words to say in apology when Kirk straightened a little and reined his horse up sharply.

  “You got a gun?” he asked.

  “Shore.” Chuckaluck reined his buckskin to a stop and studied Kirk’s twisted face speculatively in the moonlight.

  “Loan it to me.”

  “Two things I wouldn’ loan a man is m’gun and m’hawse.”

  “Then sell it to me,” Kirk burst out. “I’ll give you fifty dollars. Don’t you see, I’ve got to know.”

  “Not fo’ a hundred,” said Chuckaluck placidly. “Sooner we get tuh Marfa …”

  “Five hundred,” Jerry Kirk cut in.

  “Yuh got five hunderd dollars?”

  “Not in cash. But I will have. We’ll be rich now,” he went on, his voice quivering with excitement. “You heard me read that letter from the lawyers in Ohio. Soon as we collect that money I’ll pay you five hundred.”

  “S’posin’ yuh nevuh colleck that money?”

  “What’s that? Why not? You heard what the lawyers said …”

  “That yore wife is due tuh get thuh money. But what if yuh was to take my gun an’ go back an’ make yore play an’ don’t find yore wife, what then?”

  Kirk’s lean, pointed jaw dropped and he shuddered. “Then … I dunno,” he confessed miserably. “I reckon that means only one thing. That twisted-face feller killed her and Bobbie this afternoon an’ maybe buried them right there on the mesa.”

  “In that case,” said Chuckaluck quietly, “I’d be out m’five hunderd dollars. Le’s be ridin’.”

  “No! I could still pay you. If Lucy is dead, that means the money’ll still come to me.”

  Reckon not,” Chuckaluck said flatly and with a hint of authority. ‘If she’s dead it’ll go tuh her pappy’s next o’ kin.”

  “No it won’t,” Kirk said, equalling Chuckaluck’s authoritative tone. “Just because she wasn’t in Ohio to claim it doesn’t make any difference. Soon as her old man died all his money rightfully became Lucy’s. Now, if she happens to die before she claims it, it’ll pass on by law to her next of kin … which is me. So, you can’t lose.” He held out his hand hopefully. “Let me have the gun. I swear I’ll pay you. I’ll sign a IOU if you want.”

  Chuckaluck shook his head. “I shore hate tuh turn down a price like that fo’ this ol’ hawg-leg that ain’t wuth more’n twen’y dollars, but I done promised thuh sheriff I’d do m’best tuh see yuh didn’ come tuh no hahm. Soon’s we get tuh Marfa,” he added persuasively, “I got a idee how tuh find out whether thuh ZV fo’man was lyin’ or not ’thout evah goin’ back there.”

  “How’ll you do that?” asked Kirk eagerly.

  “I’ll tell yuh whilst we ride.” Chuckaluck spurred his buckskin to a trot, and Kirk spurred his mount to come abreast of him, and both horses slowed to a walk.

  “How?” Kirk demanded again.

  “Montrose tol’ us his boss pulled out at daylight, headed fo’ Fo’t Davis,” the chunky cowhand told him.

  “And I don’t believe it.”

  “Keep yore britches on,” Chuckaluck advised. “I’m comin’ tuh that. This Twister pilgrum claims as how he rode from Fo’t Davis this mawnin’.”

  “Which I also doubt,” said Kirk stubbornly.

  Chuckaluck sighed. “Yuh think he’s lyin’ ’cause he killed yore wife. An’ yuh think Montrose is lyin’ ’cause Frank Adams has got ’er. Yuh cain’t have it both ways.”

  Jerry Kirk thought for a moment, then said, “I think Montrose is lyin’ like Adams told him to … so I guess that let’s this Twister out. What of it?”

  “Like I said … he claims he rode from Fo’t Davis this mawnin’. If he did he must of met Frank Adams on thuh road.”

  “That’s right. If he claims he didn’t meet Adams …”

  “Then that’ll be plen’y time tuh start thinkin’ aboot ridin’ back tuh thuh ZB an’ raisin’ a rumpus,” Chuckaluck pointed out patiently. “Chances are, Sheriff Morgan’ll send some deppities back with yuh, an’ that’ll be better’n tacklin’ Montrose an’ Tex by yorese’f, won’t it?”

  “I reckon … you’re right,” Kirk admitted sullenly. “But what if this Twister says he did meet Adams on the road?”

  “Then yuh won’t hafta bother searchin’ thuh ZB spread. Yuh’ll be plumb shore Frank Adams couldn’ have nothin’ tuh do with Missus Kirk disappearin’. But we gotta be keerful how we ast ’im aboot it,” Chuckaluck cautioned gravely. “Don’t let ’im ketch on that iffen he said ‘yes’ he’s stickin’ his own head in a noose. Better have thuh sheriff go with yuh, an’ jus’ ast ’im casual-like. Fust, ast ’im how many riders he met on thuh road, an’ start pinnin’ him down thataway. If he says fust off he didn’ meet nobuddy … waal then yuh’d be moughty shore he was tellin’ thuh truth.”

  “That’s smart,” Kirk agreed. “Durned smart,” he went on, a note of doubt coming into his voice, “for a wandering waddie out of a job. You wouldn’t be a Texas Ranger, would you?”

  “Not me.” Chuckaluck’s full round mouth spread in a grin. “Jus’ a cowhand headin’ down Mexico way.” He reached inside his shirt and took out his harmonica and began a wailing rendition of I’m a Lone Cowhand from the Rio Grande.