Boyd turned to his segundo and said, “You blasted fool. You can tell by looking at him that he’s not Navajo. Not all Indians look alike, you know.”
That surprised Sam. Before he could start feeling too kindly toward Boyd, though, the rancher went on, “But that doesn’t mean he’s not a damned rustler anyway. A couple of white men and a Cheyenne ’breed can be owlhoots just like anybody else.”
“I never stole a cow in my life,” Wilbur said angrily, “and neither did Stovepipe.”
“And if we were the rustlers, what would we be doin’ back out here?” Stovepipe added. “Comin’ back to the scene of the crime would be kind of a durned fool thing to do, wouldn’t it?”
“Not if you were lookin’ for more stock to steal,” Lowry said.
“In broad daylight?” Sam asked.
Boyd leaned forward in his saddle.
“Then what are you doing here? I asked you before, and I don’t intend to ask you again.”
“And I reckon we told you,” Stovepipe said. “We’re lookin’ for them rustled beeves.”
“What business is it of yours?”
Sam glanced at Stovepipe and wondered what the man would say. He thought it would be a mistake to reveal their real identities to Boyd and the rest of the Devil’s Pitchfork crew. For all he and his two companions knew, Boyd was behind the scheme to smuggle guns to the Navajo and start a new Indian war here in the Four Corners.
Boyd already had a foothold here with his ranch. He would be in a good position to try to take over the rest of the region. Certainly he and his men could have lied about the rustling just to stir up the settlers in Flat Rock that much more.
He shouldn’t have worried about Stovepipe, Sam realized a second later. A lazy grin spread over the range detective’s face as he said, “Shoot, we figured there might be a reward, and we’re gettin’ a little short on funds. Thought you might be more inclined to give us some ridin’ jobs, at the very least, if we found them cows for you.”
Boyd glared at them.
“That’s what you thought, is it? What I’m inclined to do is run the three of you off my land. Either that, or string you up.”
“That’s what I’d do, boss,” Lowry said as he gave Sam a baleful look.
“I don’t want to waste the time on either of those things, though,” Boyd went on. “In fact, we’ve lolly-gagged around here enough.”
Without warning, he shucked his Colt from its holster and pointed it at Sam, Stovepipe, and Wilbur.
“Drop your guns,” he ordered. “You’re coming with us.”
Lowry looked as surprised as anybody.
“John Henry, what’re you doin’? You can’t trust these varmints!”
“I never said I trusted ’em. Why do you think I told them to drop their guns?” Boyd’s voice hardened. “I won’t tell you that again, either.”
“Reckon we’d better do what the man says,” Stovepipe drawled. He gave Sam and Wilbur a look that meant Play along. Sam understood that well enough. He didn’t see what else they could do right now.
He had seen the muscles in Boyd’s arm and shoulder tense before the rancher went for his gun. Sam was confident he could have beaten Boyd to the draw if he had tried to. He might have been able to get the drop on the rancher and use him as a hostage to get past the other fifteen men in the Devil’s Pitchfork crew.
But that wouldn’t have gotten him any closer to the answers he was looking for, Sam thought as he carefully used his left hand to slide his Colt from its holster. He pitched the revolver to the ground, where it was joined by those belonging to Stovepipe and Wilbur as well.
“Now the rifles,” Boyd commanded. “And I want that knife of yours, too, redskin.”
Again Sam swallowed the anger he felt. He leaned toward the opinion that Boyd and his men weren’t the ones who had bushwhacked him and Matt. Since that bunch obviously wanted him dead, they would have gone ahead and opened fire as soon as they rode up. Sam, Stovepipe, and Wilbur would have put up a fight, but they couldn’t have stopped the bunch from the Devil’s Pitchfork from wiping them out.
That didn’t mean Boyd wasn’t an arrogant, unpleasant son of a bitch anyway.
But maybe cooperating with the rancher would make it easier for Sam and his companions to find out what they wanted to know.
For that reason, Sam drew his bowie knife and tossed it to the ground as well.
“Now back off some,” Boyd ordered. When Sam, Stovepipe, and Wilbur had done that, Boyd jerked his head at a couple of his men, who dismounted and hurried forward to collect all the discarded hardware.
“Come on,” Boyd said. “You want to find out what happened to those rustled cows, you said. Well, so do I. We’ll follow the trail together.”
Lowry said, “I still think this is a bad idea, boss. They’re part of that bunch, I tell you.”
“Well, if they are,” Boyd said, “we’ve got us some hostages, don’t we?”
He led the pack toward the northwestern corner of the valley. Following the commanding gestures Pete Lowry made with his gun, Sam, Stovepipe, and Wilbur fell in just behind Boyd. The other hard-bitten gunmen of the Devil’s Pitchfork crew kept them mostly surrounded as they followed the rancher.
“This is what we want,” Stovepipe said to Sam from the corner of his mouth. “We get to find out where those stolen cows went, and Boyd sees that we ain’t rustlers.”
Sam nodded and said, “That’s what I thought.”
Lowry snapped, “Shut up, you two. I don’t want you back here plottin’ behind the boss’s back.”
“You know, you’re a mighty touchy sort, mister,” Wilbur said. “What happened, your ma take your favorite play-pretty away from you when you were little?”
“Why, you ...” Lowry growled as he moved his horse closer to Wilbur’s paint. He lifted the revolver he still held. “I oughta bust your skull open!”
“Pete!” Boyd’s sharp tone rang out. “That’s enough.” The white-haired rancher looked back over his shoulder. “But I warn you, mister, don’t try my patience any more than it already is. If you do, I’m liable to turn Pete loose on you.”
“Sure, Wilbur here understands,” Stovepipe said quickly. “Don’t you, Wilbur?”
“I reckon,” Wilbur said with obvious reluctance.
Sam hoped that Wilbur would behave himself and not get them killed by potential allies.
They already had more than enough enemies who would be happy to take care of that.
Chapter 26
Zack Jardine was on his way back to the Buckingham Palace Saloon when he saw Angus Braverman and Doyle Hilliard gallop into town.
For the past half-hour, Jardine had been talking to his partner in this enterprise and the discussion hadn’t gone very well, so he was in a bad mood to start with.
His anger flared up even more at the sight of Braverman and Hilliard. He had told the two men to keep an eye on that blasted half-breed and to finish him off if they got the chance.
Now, from the way they were hurrying, Jardine figured that they had fouled up again some way.
He lifted a hand to catch their attention as they started to ride past in the street. Both men reined in sharply, sawing the bits in cruel fashion.
“What the hell’s going on now?” Jardine demanded.
“It’s that redskin,” Braverman replied, not surprisingly. “He’s gone out to the Devil’s Pitchfork.”
Jardine wasn’t expecting to hear that. As his eyes widened, he said, “Why in blazes would he do that, after the run-in he had with Lowry and that bunch the other day?”
Hilliard said, “It looked to us like he was tryin’ to find the trail of those cows that got run off a couple nights ago.”
At that news, Jardine felt like spewing a string of vile curses. Realizing that wouldn’t do any good, he said, “I hope you took care of him.”