“Am I a‘ma’am’ now, Felix?”
“No’m—I mean, naw, Jo, I just—”
“Just what?” she teased.
Finnerty looked at both of them and smiled. “You just got your tongue all tangled up, didn’t you, Dag?”
“I reckon,” Dag said lamely.
“Daddy, Felix can speak for himself.”
“I know that, darlin’. I’m just trying to make the man more comfortable, is all. You bat them pretty eyes of yours at men and they lose their senses.”
“Oh, Daddy, stop it.”
When Dag didn’t say anything and she could see that he was feeling somewhat uncomfortable, she turned to her father. “Daddy, tell Felix about what happened last night.”
“Oh, yeah. Mighty peculiar,” Finnerty said.
A short silence, except for the clank and tink of pots and pans inside the wagon, the muffled scrape of tools loosened by the jarring motion of the wagon over rough terrain.
“What do you mean, Fingers?”
“Sometime last night, someone broke into the chuck and stole food.”
“What food?”
“Mostly stuff that won’t spoil for a time: jerky, hardtack, coffee beans, some salt pork, and bacon, a few peaches in airtights. Well, one or two, I guess. Didn’t hear ’em ’cause I was sleepin’ some ways away, you know, and the mules was unhitched.”
“Who do you figure?” Dag asked.
“Dunno. Could be anybody.”
“What about you, Jo? Any ideas?”
She shook her head. “I didn’t hear anything either. Whoever stole the chuck went about it awful quiet-like.”
“So nobody you can name? Either of you?”
“Coulda been one of the hands or an Injun,” Finnerty said. “They took enough grub to last ’em maybe a week or so.”
Dag pondered these revelations. Anyone in the outfit wouldn’t need to steal grub. He would just have to ask Fingers for a handout and the cook would have been happy to supply whatever was asked.
“Did you pass out grub to Matlee and his bunch?”
“Sure,” Finnerty said. “Hardtack and jerked beef. He said they’d be out for a while. He took coffee beans and some other stuff. Said he’d shoot quail or jackrabbits if they ran short of meat. Nobody had to steal nothin’ from that outfit.”
They were all silent for a while. They reached the rim of the canyon and Finnerty turned the wagon north.
“I’m going to ride up ahead and look for bad dog holes,” Dag said. “Just follow me.”
“Felix,” Jo said, “before you go, I do have one man in mind that might have stolen the food last night. I can’t prove it and I may be way wrong.”
“Who might that be?” Dag asked.
“Well, I noticed one man in the early evening pay a whole lot of attention to Daddy when he packed up after supper and I put the dishes and utensils away. He kept glancing over as he sat by the fire, smoking a cigarette and belching.”
“All right, who was that?”
“Don Horton,” she said.
“Horton?”
“Yes, I know that’s not much proof of anything, but he was mighty interested in the wagon, all of a sudden like.”
“Thanks, Jo. Time will tell,” he said, then rode away from the wagon.
Horton again. The man might be up to something. He bore watching. But if he did steal so much food, not wanting anyone to know he took it, what did that mean? What in hell was he planning to do?
Dag wondered if he would ever know. But he had a strong hunch that he would. And maybe he wouldn’t have to wait long for Horton to play out his hand and reveal his cards.
Chapter 16
Two more days of driving through the canyon, until they were well past the prairie dog town. Now Flagg was looking for a place to drive the cattle back up on the flat. The water was just trickling through the canyon and the cattle were beginning to grumble. The men had hit patches where the grass was scarce and at night Flagg ordered men to cut off prickly pear, scrape the spines off, and feed them to the weakest cattle at the rear. It wasn’t enough, but it kept the herd from running off at every bend where they could smell water.
Up on the flat, Dag could smell the urine and cowpies when the wind was right. At mealtimes, the crew halted by a game trail leading down into the canyon, where the men could walk up and get their grub. At night, Dag, Jo, and Fingers sat by the fire, talking beneath the stars. They’d had no trouble avoiding the prairie dog town, although once or twice, the two men had had to take shovels and fill in holes that the mules might drop a leg into. They managed, though, to stay ahead of the slow-moving herd.
Matlee showed up on the third day, with more than three hundred head of cattle, the hands branded well into the night and the next morning before all were turned into the herd.
“We’re gettin’ there, Dag,” Flagg said.
“Yeah, real slow though.”
“We still got a long ways to go before we hit the Red, and they’s ranches on both sides of the canyon—and lots of gullies and brush where the wild ones can hide.”
“I saw a bunch of my men riding out this morning,” Dag said. “Hunting outlaws?”
“Yep. And Matlee’s boys are hard at it too. We also picked up a few head in the canyon that just joined up with us. Lonesome, I reckon.”
Dag chortled. “Every little bit helps,” he said.
“Well, we don’t need as many hands and there’s plenty of wild cattle in this part of Texas. We’ll make do.”
“Sure, Jubal.”
It wasn’t until the next day that Dag had a chance to talk with Matlee. He had come in late the night before, to the chuck wagon and used the cookfire to heat the irons. He and his men branded sixteen head and ran them down into the canyon to join the herd, which was bedded down for the night. There was much lowing and the whinnying of horses as the strange cattle mingled with the growing herd.
“I haven’t seen Horton about,” Dag said. “He didn’t come in with you?”
“Naw, Don said he was going to scout ahead the other day. Haven’t seen him since.”
“He have grub to do that?”
“He didn’t ask for none. So I guess so. How come you want to know about that?”
Dag told him about the chuck wagon break-in some four or five days before.
“Mighty peculiar,” Matlee said.
“Yeah, ain’t it, though?”
“Are you thinkin’ Horton stole that grub?”
“Well, put two and two together, Barry: Horton’s gone, and he didn’t ask you for no grub. If he knew he was goin’ to be ridin’ off by hisself, all he had to do was ask Fingers for some extra chuck.”
“I see what you mean, Dag.” Matlee lifted his hat and scratched his pate. “Don’t make no sense, you put it that way.”
“No, it don’t. Unless Horton was huntin’ somethin’ else like.”
“Like what?”
“I dunno. Maybe me. When Jo and I went fishin’ a few nights ago, somebody took a shot at me or her at that catfish pond.”
“First I heard of it.”
“Yeah. I haven’t told anyone. But Jo said he was watchin’ me all the time, and before you and your boys lit out, he was eyein’ the chuck wagon, seein’ what all Fingers put away and where he put it. You take three or four suspicions like that and you got a whole passel of evidence. Maybe circumstantial, but evidence none the damned less.”
“Boy, Dag, you better, by God, be sure before you accuse a good cowhand like Horton of such shenanigans.”
“I’ve been studyin’ on that some, Barry, the past few days.”
Dag pulled the makings from his pocket and handed the sack to Matlee. Matlee took the tobacco and Dag fished out the papers and handed those to him. Barry rolled a cigarette, licked it tight, and stuck it in his mouth. He handed the makings back to Dag, who rolled a quirly for himself. Then he struck a match and lit Matlee’s cigarette and his own.