Savage Range Read Free

out a sack of tobacco and rolled a smoke, and Jim packed his pipe and lighted it.
    â€œNothin’ to tell except what I told you,” Bonsell murmured. “My outfit, the Excelsior, has bought out this grant—the old Ulibarri grant. They picked it up for a lot of back taxes, and the title’s clear. It’s been fifteen years since an Ulibarri lived on it, and in that time a whole damn countryful of seven-cow outfits has moved in on its free grass. They got no right on it and they’ve never paid lease money. They treat it like open range. The first job Excelsior faces is runnin’ them off. We warn them first, then push their beef off, and if it comes to trouble we fight for our property.” He looked over lazily at Jim. “That sound like I lied to you?”
    â€œNot much.”
    â€œNot any. I told you we was takin’ over a Spanish grant. You’ve seen enough of that stuff to know what to expect.”
    â€œThat’s right,” Jim agreed.
    â€œI named a good wage—not a fightin’ wage, exactly—because I figured you were a good man. You wouldn’t run from a bluff and you wouldn’t hunt trouble. And you knew cattle. If I’m wrong, tell me different.”
    Jim drawled, “And yet you got the whole country fightin’ me to start with.”
    â€œThat bother you? I’ve been sittin’ here all evenin’.”
    â€œHad a drink with anybody?” Jim asked dryly, and he saw the flush creep into Bonsell’s face.
    Bonsell said, “No. They’ve got no love for Excelsior. But they’re scared.”
    â€œThey can get over that.”
    Bonsell shrugged and smoked, his eyes watchful and hard. He had had his say, Jim knew. If he wanted to shake hands with Bonsell now and walk out of here, get his horse, and ride off, there was nothing to stop him. But there was a kind of indirect flattery in what Max Bonsell said that made Jim hesitate. Max Bonsell needed a good man, one not wholly a fighter and one not wholly a cowman. The combination, outside of Texas, was hard to find, and Bonsell thought Jim Wade was the man. Again, with about three silver dollars to rattle in his pocket, what kind of a fool would he be to turn down this reasonable proposition? He’d fought to get his little spread down in Texas and he’d fought rustlers to keep it. He’d fought a crooked sheriff and a crooked county board. He’d fought trail rustlers and he’d fought other drovers on the Chisholm, and when he got to Dodge and Oglalla he’d fought Yankee marshals and Texas hardcases. He was sick of it, but that was no reason why a man had to hunt a hole, like a rabbit, and hide in it. The facts were plain enough and always had been; you fought your whole life long if you wanted to live.
    He said briefly, “I’ll take it. How many men—”
    A commotion at one of the crowded faro tables beside him silenced him. A chair crashed over backward, and there was a sudden scuffling of feet. The hard, strident voice of the dealer rose over the clatter of the room, and it was cursing in bitter, spaced violence.
    A man swung out from behind the bar, a man Jim had not noticed before. He was a mountain of a man, his bones smothered in great folds of flesh that caricatured every line of him. He lunged out into the clear, and Jim saw that his right leg was gone, the empty trouser leg pinned up. A thick oak crutch was propped under his arm, and he strangely contrived to move with an agility which was as swift as it was ponderous. He shouldered a loafer out of his way, sending him spinning, and then he plowed into the handful of men who had crowded around the quarrel. They parted for him, and he stopped under the lamp, his shaven head round and set stubbornly on his shoulders and beaded with a fine sweat.
    He reached out and yanked a thick-bodied, bearded puncher up from the table and spun him against the wall. A slim, gangling young