The Plains of Laramie Read Free Page A

Flourney checked into the sheriff’s office when he came back to Mendocino and saw the lamplight coming out of the barred window. He looked owlishly at Link Tolliver in his cell, went back in to the front office, and sighed. “ Phew! That hombre looks more like a bushwhacker than a bushwhacker does.” He rolled a cigarette with a weary gesture. “Say, d’ya ever try to keep an eye on two wildcats at the same time? ¡Hijo de puta! I have today. Even after old Ned asked ’em to stick around, they was like a pair of fledgling magpies, sore at the world, mad at me fer hangin’ around, an’ sore at the old man, too, fer not lettin’ ’em go over to Cobb’s Ferry.”
    Masters laughed and got up, reaching for his hat where it dangled precariously from one tip of a four-point hatrack. “Well, it’s all over now, Wes. Link’ll stay here until Ned can get up and come in to prefer charges, then we’ll have a trial, an’ maybe Link’ll draw a few years.” He shrugged toward the door after blowing out the lamp. “Mendocino’ll be peaceable again now…for a while, anyway.”
    Deputy Flourney shrugged out behind his employer and flicked the cigarette into a nearby rain barrel, full of greenish water. “It’ll be a relief, by damn, not to have that nursemaid role any longer. G’night, Jack.”
    The sheriff was heading across the dusty road toward his rooms in the Mendocino Hotel above the Goldstrike Saloon when he answered with a friendly little nod: “ Buenas noches. ”
    With the first cold bitterness of predawn Jack Masters sat upright. Wes Flourney, dressed but disheveled, was bending over him, shaking him frantically. “Wake up, Jack, dammit man, wake up.”
    “All right, you idiot, don’t tear my arm off. Just what in hell’s wrong with you? Lose your way home an’ hang one on in the Goldstrike?”
    “Jack”—Flourney’s voice was high-keyed with excitement—“the gather that was bein’ held below the Pothook, in that box cañon the cowmen use to hold their critters before they drive ’em to the railroad over at Rawlins, was rustled clean as a hound’s tooth last night.”
    Masters blinked his eyes owlishly at Wes. “How’d ya find out?”
    Wes snorted loudly. “ Compadre , there’s just about every damned cowman this side o’ New Mexicodownstairs in the Goldstrike right now, screamin’ their heads off. They want their cattle back, but more’n that they want someone’s blood.”
    Masters swung out of his bed and dressed silently. The fall drive had been in the making for quite a few days now and finally each ranch had shoved its allocated critters into the gather preparatory to the communal drive to Rawlins. It was an annual affair, and Jack knew how the ranchers would feel. He also knew that there would be blood on the moon if their suspicions were ever fixed on specific individuals. He yawned prodigiously, yanked his Stetson low over his forehead, and cast a wistful glance at the rumpled, warm bed before following Wes downstairs.
    Pandemonium was in full swing in the saloon. Most of the ranchers had come directly from their beds and showed it. They may have lacked some of the lesser necessities of sartorial equipment, but none of them had forgotten guns. Rifles were in evidence everywhere, across laps, leaning against chairs, under arms, and on the bar top, while the conventional six-gun was prominent on every leg. When Masters entered the room with his deputy, the furor swelled into a demanding, snarling tirade that roared and rumbled like a major waterfall of hoarse anger.
    Jack shook his head slowly and held up his hand. “Dammit, one at a time, boys. Now, then, when do you figger it happened?”
    Cal Prouty and his brother were sitting at a vacated poker table. He frowned darkly. “No tellin’, Jack…sometime last night is about all we know. The night hawk was knocked over the head. He’s over at Everhart’s place, still unconscious. The relief guardsfound him and set up the