Wanted: Dead or Alive Read online

  Cushman again gave Dade close scrutiny. “I’m obliged to you,” he said. “Would grieve me sorely was anything bad to come to these young folks. Sort of look upon them as my own kin. You going to be around for a while?”

  “He’s riding out now,” Roxanne said before Dade could answer. “We offered him a job but he has important business elsewhere … business that can’t wait.”

  “Too bad,” the rancher said, and frowned. “Was the same bunch, I expect.”

  “Far as we could tell.”

  “You didn’t recognize any of them?”

  “No. They were wearing those masks, same as before.”

  Cushman stirred angrily. “Well, there’s no doubt in my mind who they are. Can’t be anybody but Grosinger’s men.”

  Lockett, arms folded across his chest, considered the rancher narrowly. “How’d you hear about the raid?”

  “One of my hands,” Cushman said promptly. “He was hunting strays south of here. Heard the shooting and rode over to see what it was all about, but by the time he got here the raiders was gone.”

  “A little sooner he could’ve done some helping,” Renzo observed dryly.

  “What I told him … that he should’ve pitched in, done what he could anyway. Instead, he turns around and busts a gut getting back to my place to tell me about it. Was too late then to do anything. There anything you’re needing, Roxie? Anything I can do for you?”

  “She can use a man for a couple of days,” Renzo said quickly.

  “That so?”

  “I need someone to drive fifty head of cattle over to Bern Pogue’s place,” the girl explained. “He’s agreed to buy them from us. It would be a big favor.”

  Cushman was wagging his head slowly, regretfully even before she had finished speaking. “That’s probably the only thing I can’t do … spare a man. Roundup’s just finishing and branding’s going full blast. Every man I’ve got’s tied up.”

  “It would only be for two days … at the most.”

  “I realize that. Now, was it any other time of the year …”

  “Of course,” Roxanne said indifferently. “I understand.”

  Ed Cushman wasn’t quite as good a family friend as some believed, Lockett thought. Sparing one cowpuncher for so short a time would hardly create a hardship. Dade shrugged, a wry realization coming to him; he had taken the same position as the rancher, feeling that he could not afford to give up any of his time to help the girl either. But there was a difference, he assured himself; he was merely a passing stranger, Ed Cushman was a friend of some standing, professed to be greatly interested in the welfare of the son and daughter of an old acquaintance.

  “Well, expect I’d best be getting back to business. Cowhands are all alike. Unless you keep right at them they start dogging the job.” Reaching up, he touched the brim of his hat with two fingers. “I’ll look in on you again later. You need anything, just let me know.”

  Roxie nodded to the rancher as he wheeled about, set spurs to his horse, and hammered out of the yard.

  Renzo Clark spat in disgust. “Yeah, you just let him know … only don’t figure on nothing! He’s the kind that’s always willing to give you the shirt offen his back … only he just never gets around to giving it.”

  “Now, Renzo …”

  “It’s the truth! Been promising to give you and Clint a hand right along, but I ain’t ever seen him doing it.”

  “He has a big ranch to look after and has plenty of problems of his own. We can’t expect him to neglect his own place for us.”

  “Loaning us one hired hand … I sure don’t figure that’d be doing any neglecting.”

  The girl sighed. “Perhaps not, but there’s nothing we can do about it and we’ll manage. We have before and we will again.”

  “One stinking cowpuncher … he’d never be missed.”

  “We don’t know that, and it is his busy time. Mister Cushman brought in a lot of new stock, and the calf crop was good, I hear. There’d be a lot of extra work.”

  Lockett, inclined to agree with Clark, made no comment. He could offer nothing but words and Roxie was getting plenty of those. Turning to the chestnut, he swung onto the saddle. “Hope your brother does fine,” he said. “I won’t be forgetting to stop in town to see if I can hire you some help.”

  “Thank you,” the girl said soberly. “Good bye.”

  “So long,” Dade answered, and, ducking his head at Renzo, struck out across the yard for the road.

  VII

  The air was cool and an early morning haze hung over the land as Dade Lockett turned onto the road that led south. He followed the not-too-well-defined tracks for a short distance, his glance appreciatively taking in the long sweeps of grassy flats and low, rolling hills, and then forsaking them, cutting directly for the cone-shaped mountain in the distance where Renzo Clark had said the town of Mule Springs lay. The road would take him there, also, he knew, but it would pursue a more roundabout route, one suited to wagons and other vehicles; he could save time and enjoy a pleasant ride by angling across country to reach the settlement.

  Sitting easy in the saddle, allowing his body to flow with the motion of the chestnut, he swept the valley with a lingering gaze. Far to the right were the Peloncillo Mountains, and beyond them Arizona—and Tucson. To his left reared the Pyramid Hills, below them the range called the Animas beyond which was Mexico. He tried to recall the name of the taller mountains to the east, failed. When he had looked over the map of the area that was on the wall of a saloon in Willow Gap, up in Colorado, he had concentrated his attention on that part that would get him in Tucson by the shortest course, thus he had paid little attention to the fringe portions.

  Topping out on a fairly good hill, he dropped down its opposite slope and crossed a small, fast-running creek in the cleavage between it and its neighbor. Patches of yellow and purple flowers edged its banks and in a wider section where the water flattened out to form a marsh, sunflowers and crownbeard, still in the budding stage, grew thickly. It was a fine land, Lockett thought, one a man could find easy to settle in, start a life of his own. Cattle would do well; there was ample water, a wealth of grass, and this far south the winters should not be too severe. It was not hard to understand why Grosinger and Cushman, and others like them, craved more of the land—and why the Rakers stubbornly held on against such odds to the piece that was theirs; it was prime country well worth fighting for. At least, where the Rakers were concerned, that was how it had seemed the night before. Now he was not so sure. There seemed a change in Roxie this morning, a coolness in her determination. She had said nothing that would indicate a difference in her thinking, yet he sensed that she no longer …

  “You … hold it!”

  At the harsh command Lockett jerked the gelding to a halt, hand going quickly to the pistol on his hip in the same instant.

  “Never mind that,” the voice warned. “Be a damn’ good way to get your head blowed off!”

  Dade hung motionlessly, eyes on the two men who sat their horses in a slight coulée a dozen paces away. Deep in thought he had ridden straight into them without noticing their presence. One appeared to be an ordinary cowhand, but the other, the one doing the talking, was a large, powerfully built, dark-faced individual with hard eyes and a slash for a mouth. The white-stockinged bay he rode bore a Diamond with a G suspended in its center on its hip; Dade knew at once that the rider could be no one else but John Grosinger.

  “What the hell you doing here?”

  Lockett settled back, sighed quietly. With matters the way they were he should have expected this, stuck to the trail. “Just riding,” he said laconically.

  “Where to?” Grosinger snapped.

  Dade ducked his head in the direction of a cone-shaped mountain. “Mule Springs.”

  “There’s a road going there. Why ain’t you on it?”

 
“Figured to take a short cut.”

  “Across my range. Know who I am?”

  Lockett nodded, unwilling to give the rancher the satisfaction of speaking his name. Grosinger was a tough one, it was easy to see that, and he’d be a hard man to beat at anything. Temper began to stir within Dade. What sort of a chance did folks like the Rakers stand against the self-made kings such as John Grosinger? None at all.

  “I’m going easy on you,” the rancher said in a patronizing tone. “I’m telling myself you just made a mistake. But it ends there. Turn that horse around and start backtracking. I want you off my range.”

  “Seems you want a lot,” Dade said mildly. “Like the Raker place, for one.”

  Grosinger scowled. “What about the Raker place?”

  “I know you’re out to get it.”

  “Sure. I can use the grass. Anyway, the country’s better off without them little two-bit, starved-out spreads.” The rancher’s eyes narrowed. “What’s it to you?”

  “Happened to be there last night when your sack-wearing boys rode in and shot up the place. Think maybe I winged a couple of them for you.”

  Grosinger shook his head. “Wasn’t none of my outfit.”

  Lockett smiled bleakly. “Didn’t much figure you’d own up to it. I can tell you you’ll just about get your way now. Clint Raker got shot and I think the girl’s about ready to give in. Sure can’t handle the ranch by herself.”

  “They shouldn’t have ever started trying. They’re not cut out to do ranching.”

  “Expect they could’ve made it if their pa hadn’t got himself bushwhacked. You don’t know anything about that, either, I reckon.”

  “Heard about it. Hardly knew the man myself.”

  Dade shrugged. “Somebody knew him,” he said pointedly.

  The cowpuncher with Grosinger stirred. The rancher’s jaw tightened. “Sounds like you’re calling me a liar, mister.”

  “Take it how you like,” Dade replied coolly. “I figure if the hat fits, you’ll put it on.”

  “Well, it don’t, and I ain’t listening to that kind of talk. By rights I ought to turn you over to some of my boys, let them drag you off my land.”

  “The same flour-sack-wearing gents you’ve got ragging the Rakers, I’ll bet.”

  Grosinger swore softly, considered Lockett angrily for a long moment. Then his big shoulders lifted, fell. “I’ve got too much on my mind to let myself get all worked up by you, cowboy. But I ain’t long on patience, so best thing you can do is turn around, get back on the road. You keep cutting across my range and I won’t be responsible for what’ll happen to you.”

  Abruptly the rancher wheeled the bay around and, using his spurs, struck out across the flat to a second scatter of hills to the east. The rider with him remained unmoving, his glance on Dade. “Was you smart, you’d do like he says.”

  “Was I smart,” Lockett said dryly, “I’d be the President of the United States.”

  The cowpuncher’s expression didn’t change. After a bit he glanced over his shoulder at Grosinger, now well in the distance—and beyond range of a pistol, Dade realized. “Reckon you can go now,” he said. “I can’t shoot him in the back from here.”

  The rider roweled his horse out of the coulée and loped off in the wake of the rancher. Lockett, eyes on the pair, now dropping down into a deep swale, waited until they had vanished, and then, twisting half about on the saddle, hooked a leg on the horn, took out his sack of tobacco and fold of papers, and rolled a cigarette. Grosinger was just about as he had figured the man would be—big, arrogant, and cold as a rattlesnake. He already had a world of land, still wanted more. And once he got it, he’d still be unsatisfied. They were all alike, the Grosingers, never content, always out to get bigger and bigger regardless of actual need or who they hurt or what it cost. When the time came, when the hour was right, John Grosinger would ride roughshod over Roxie and Clint Raker and take what he wanted, regardless. That was the way men like him accomplished their end—wear down the opposition, reduce it to shreds, then move in and take over. And more the shame and sorrow, he’d get away with it because there was never anyone around to take a stand with the little people like the Rakers; they always had to go it alone—even the law, too often influenced by the politicians, usually turned its back on them.

  Dade Lockett straightened himself slowly on the saddle. By God, this was one time the song was going to be different, he decided, flipping the cold cigarette into the grass. He’d gamble a few days just for the sake of seeing John Grosinger fail in his efforts to grind the Rakers underfoot. Cutting about, he doubled back over his tracks at a steady lope.

  VIII

  He was a fool, a voice within him kept warning, a fool to deviate from his avowed purpose of tracking down Pete Dillard and calling him to account, a fool for mixing into something that was none of his concern. To turn away now when he was so near Tucson, take a hand in a range-grabbing affair that could end only one way, with the big man grinding the little one under, was utter foolishness. He should forget the Rakers, the night riders, and greedy men like John Grosinger; he should stick to his own need, find Dillard, and ease the fires of vengeance and hate searing through his guts. The inner voice pushed at him relentlessly, reminding him over and over again of his original determination to right the wrong Dillard had done him, but it did not slow or turn him back, something stronger than his own hunger holding him steadfast. In his own mind he was not sure why he was doing it. Perhaps it was an outgrowth of his own early struggle against overwhelming odds, the weak against the strong, the David and Goliath story in ninteenth-century dress, or possibly it simply sprang from the innate goodness of men always present in one form or another. He didn’t know and he was a man who dwelt little on cause and effect and did what he felt he must do.

  An hour later he broke out of the tree-studded hills and came onto the long flat that formed the floor of the valley. At once he came to sharp attention. Far ahead a smudge of dirty gray was mounting into the sky. Lockett frowned as he studied it. The Raker place lay in that direction. Could it be the raiders had struck again, or was it just a range fire? He wasted no time puzzling over it but immediately roweled the chestnut into a fast lope for the ugly mass rapidly growing in size and darkening in color as it hung over the land.

  Dade swore deeply. John Grosinger, at the very time they were holding their conversation, and who had taken such pains to deny any connection with the hooded riders, had been aware that his men were probably moving in on the Raker place at that moment! He was a cold-blooded one all right, and everything old Renzo Clark figured him to be. The chestnut raced on and with each passing mile the anxiety within Dade Lockett increased. He was certain now it was not a range fire; the source of the smoke was too concentrated and not spreading as it could be expected to do. Judging from the size of the blackening cloud, he would guess that the raiders had fired all of the buildings on the ranch; likely their orders had been to leave nothing standing, and faced with this Roxie and Clint would have no choice but to give in. Again, he swore. He should never have ridden out that morning! He should have stayed there, then he could have been of some help to the Rakers. Now maybe it was too late.

  Cresting the last rise on the vast plain, he saw the ranch on ahead. Flames were shooting into the sky and smoke was a great, boiling cloud surging upward. He could see Roxanne and Clark running back and forth in the yard behind the house, which had not yet caught fire, and realized most of the ominous cloud was arising from the hay stored in the barn.

  Reaching the gate he swung onto the hardpack, thundered across the intervening space, and pulled up short. Leaping from the saddle, he hurried to join the girl and the old cowhand. Roxie glanced up, fear blanking her eyes, and then they filled with relief when she saw he was not one of the raiders. Seizing one of the buckets, Lockett dipped it into the water trough, hurried to where Renzo was sloshing his container fu
ll against one of the small sheds. The barn was lost, burning furiously out of all possible control; the need now was to save the nearby sheds.

  Clark bobbed to him as he rushed up, moved on by on a return trip to the trough. Dade tossed his bucketful against the steaming tool shed, assessed its probabilities and that of other nearby structures in a quick glance, and wheeled to refill his container.

  Roxie, breathing heavily, was resting against the side of the pump housing. Renzo, too, had paused, and was sucking hard for wind. Taking up the bucket being used by the girl, Lockett filled it along with his own and for several more minutes continued to soak the walls of the structures that faced the doomed barn until danger of their breaking out into flames had passed.

  “Reckon we done it,” Renzo said wearily, mopping at his sooty face with a bandanna. “Sure glad you come along when you did.”

  Dade squatted on his heels, glanced around. Only the barn had been consumed by the fire. “The horses?” he asked.

  “Got them out in time,” Roxie replied. Her features, too, were streaked with black and there were several burned places in her shirtwaist and dress where live sparks had fallen. “All we lost was the barn … and the things stored in it.”

  “The same bunch of raiders?”

  “Far as we could tell.”

  Lockett could feel the girl’s eyes on him, studying him closely. “I was talking to Grosinger. Must’ve been about the time they hit you.”

  “That’d be him, all right!” Renzo declared angrily. “Ain’t taking no chance hisself … just sets off to the side and lets them sidewinders do the dirty work for him.”

  “He claimed the raiders don’t work for him.”

  “You figure he’d say they did?”

  “No. I expected him to deny like he did. Clint all right?”

  Roxie nodded, said quietly: “Why did you come back?”

  Lockett shrugged. “Ain’t real sure. Guess it was running into Grosinger. The way he acted stirred me up some. That job you offered still open?”