Mitch explained that suing was out of the question. Savage scratched his ankle with the toe of his boot and reached for the whiskey again. It was just possible, he said, that suing wouldn't do any good anyway; fella sued he might find a long line ahead of him.
"Come t'think of it, that's probably why them checks wasn't paid, Mitch. The way Gidge is feelin' the squeeze, she ain't paying nothing she can possibly get out of."
"Yes?" Mitch said. "I'm not sure I follow you, Art."
"What's so hard to follow? The ranch is in trouble, money trouble, an' it couldn't happen to a nicer outfit."
"But how could it be, for God's sake? Over a million acres of land and two or three hundred producing oil wells, and-"
Savage told him how it could be. Because the ranch didn't end with its million acres. It stretched all the way to New York and on down to South America, and even over into Iran and the Far East. The ranch holdings included chain stores and apartment houses, and shipping and manufacturing companies, and so damned many other things that even Gidge Lord probably didn't know what they were.
"Oh, sure, she's got people runnin' the shebang for her. Whole office buildin' full of 'em in New York, I understand. But the best people in the world can't help you none if you don't listen to 'em, and they sure can't make a dollar be in more'n one place 't once." Savage paused, chuckling with grim satisfaction. "Told her a long time ago she was spreading herself too thin-just tryin' to be friendly, you know. And you know what she told me?"
"Something pretty unpleasant, I suppose."
"It was, oh, it was unpleasant, all right. Not to mention downright dirty-mouthed. Had a mind to repeat it to her last week when she paid me a call, but I just don't believe in talking that way in front of ladies even if they ain't."
Savage revealed that Gidge Lord had tried to borrow money from him (without success, naturally!). The banks were loaded with her paper, and would take no more, and she was now beating the bushes for private money. She needed twenty million-or so she had told Savage-and she was short more than half of it.
"I told her if she was so hard up she'd better clamp down on Winnie, but o'course she'd never do it. Prob'ly couldn't, short of killin' him, and anyways I guess what he blows in doesn't stack up to a lot when you need as much as she does."
"I suppose not," Mitch said. "Particularly when he can have so much fun without paying anything for it."
"Oh, sure. They're real fond of doing that."
They finished the bottle, the old man drinking most of it. Mitch saw him to the door, and they shook hands.
"Well, thanks for dropping in, Art. Let's get together again when I'm out this way."
"Anytime," Savage said. "You just whistle an' I'll come arunnin'. Did I tell you anything helpful?"
"Helpful?"
"Uh-uh. For when you go out to the ranch tomorrow."
"Well, I'm not sure. But-"
"Then I'll tell you somethin' now. Don't go."
He nodded firmly and went down the hall to the elevator, very erect, swaying with the teeter of his boots.
At eight o'clock the next morning, Mitch started for the ranch.
His first forty minutes or so were on the highway, and easy going. He turned off it onto a county road, which twisted sharply and constantly at its township lines and ended abruptly, after some twenty miles, at the side of a small mountain.
A three-strand barbed-wire fence ran along the base of the mountain. From the top wire, a rusted tin sign swung gently in the incessant West Texas wind:
LORD
Keep Out
The fence followed a rutted trail which led off across the rolling grasslands in a southwesterly direction. Mitch turned into the trail, wincing as the car's crankcase dragged dirt. He drove very carefully, running in low gear much of the time. The car bounced and pitched, and a ribbon of steam seeped out from under the hood.
The Lords had little interest in roads. They traveled by plane and helicopter. A spur railroad led into the ranch from its other side, bringing in what they wanted to buy and taking out what they wished to sell. Since they seldom used roads themselves, then, naturally, they would not contribute to their upkeep. County and district tax boards had long since given up trying to make them.
In less than an hour, Mitch was forced to stop to let the car cool off. With the hood raised, he leaned against a fender and mopped the dust from his eyes. He looked down the shambling line of the fence, the tin warning signs swinging from it at fifty-foot intervals, Lord-Keep Out, and he thought, Okay, so I believe you! On perhaps every fifth or sixth fence post was the bleached skull of a steer, grisly testimony to the truth that ranching is not a gravy train. One of these mementos grinned at Mitch from a few feet away. The horns were tilted at a rakish angle, and the fleshless jaws hung open as though speaking to him.
He turned away from it suddenly. He said aloud, "My God, what am I doing here?" And he had no sensible answer to the question. He had come here because he didn't know what else to do. Because there was always a chance in the seemingly most chanceless situation. Not much of a chance, maybe. A much better chance doubtless of getting your butt kicked off. But there was a chance, and if he could see it and act on it, he could still stay even with the game. He could still have Red. And if he missed it, that one-in-a-million chance-
Well, nothing would matter much, anyway.
He got back in the car and drove on. Rather grimly, his jaw set; fighting down the insistent queasiness of his stomach. This had to be done, the long shot risk had to be taken. But all his gambler's instincts cried out against it, and all his years of civilized living shrank from it. It had been a very long time since he had traveled in circles where clobbering was an accepted practice. He wondered if he was still up to it, and he guessed he would find out very soon.
The trail rose gently for a mile or more, then dropped into a softly swelling flatland. The brutal scrub-oaked cliffs and rocky hummocks were abruptly gone, and the emptiness around them was gone, and the land was filled with the evidence of life.
Pumping jacks and stub-derricks marched across the countryside. Telephone poles, heavy with cross-braces and cables, appeared out of nowhere. White-faced cattle moved over the grass like a slowly unrolling carpet, spread out in an endless array of thoughtfully munching jaws and lazily switching tails until they were lost in the horizon. Far off to the right were the glimmering white outlines of the ranch buildings. Behind them a plane arrowed up into the sky and disappeared in its brilliance.
The trail took another right-angle turn. A mile later it ended at a cattle-crossing and gate. Immediately inside the gate, blocking the graveled road which stretched up into the ranch, stood a jeep. It carried the thick aerial of a radio transmitter. A young cowhand sat in it, talking over the phone, his white teeth flashing occasionally as he laughed.
He gestured a greeting at Mitch with the barrel of his rifle, then pointed it, shaking his head as Mitch started to get out of the car. Mitch stayed where he was. A couple of minutes later, the cowhand hung up the phone and came over to him.
He wore a gunbelt and gun-the first cowhand Mitch had ever seen so equipped. He also kept his rifle with him. He thrust his tow- colored head through the window, his mouth parted in a wide grin, and said, "Uh-hah?"