"Meaning it couldn't have been Kenton's man?" Sam asked. "Or even Jesse himself?"
Alonzo Winner sighed. He'd seen Sam and the country growing up but there was a side of him that was all lawman and nothing else. "I wouldn't guess about something like that. But I heard about you roughing Mary Teller. He's the kind of man who'd think about revenge."
"Marv is Jesse's man. He wouldn't move without a word from Kenton."
"Marv is a natural born killer, one of the few I've known. Oh, he goes off by himself and gets drunk after killin' a man but he don't let that stop him from killin' again."
Sam looked at Winner. "How do you stand with Kenton, Alonzo?"
Winner gave a wintry smile. "Jesse Kenton hasn't got the time of day for me. I don't run my job to suit him. I
treat him just like I treat anybody else and he doesn't like it." He hesitated and then almost reluctantly reached in a side pocket of his coat and brought out a glove. He tossed it to Sam. "The killer dropped this, Sam. Not much to go on, is it?"
Sam studied the buckskin glove of soft tanned deerhide. "I'll keep it if you don't mind. Pat and Mike—it'll give them something to go on," he said in a grim voice.
"You're in no shape to take the trail by yourself, even with your dogs," Winner said. "After I get cleaned up and tend to some business in my office I'll come back out and go with you."
"I'll meet you at the old cottonwood where you lost the trail," Sam said. "At daylight tomorrow."
Nodding, Winner mounted his horse and rode toward Crossroad Corners.
Sam watched him out of sight and then got on his horse and headed for Flag.
Wish
I'd told him about my brush with the farmer,
he thought gloomily as he rode. After a while the wind slacked
off but it did nothing for his taut nerves. He could open his eyes now, not have to squint and he slipped the neckerchief from his nose and mouth. His head didn't ache
as
much as it had but nothing else was changed.
He crossed the creek separating Flag from Kenton's J Bar K and his horse quickened its pace of its own accord, climb-
ing the long incline toward the frost-tinted cottonwood grove that surrounded the old stone house where he and Dick lived. A few gaunt cows bawling piteously nosed at damp spots in the creek bed. He felt his insides tighten.
The hounds bayed out to meet him. They stopped their alarm when they got his familiar scent but came on, grinning and wagging their behinds. He stepped down from the saddle and bent to scratch Mike's ears while Pat, a standoffish blue tick, sat regarding him with sad eyes. The wind was rising again; the cottonwoods rustled and red-gold leaves drifted down to be caught by the wind and whirled away.
He led the horse to the barn, followed by the hounds. He stripped off the hull in the odorous dimness and hung the saddle blanket where it would dry out. He rubbed the horse down with a dry gunny sack and led him to the back door of the ranch house. The horse whinnied, no doubt remembering that he'd been watered at this spot before, from the barrels of water in the kitchen.
Sam frowned, looking about for the tin tub used for a watering trough. He spied it where the wind had blown it into the cotton woods a hundred feet away. He dropped the reins and went toward the battered gray galvanized container. He was lifting it when the shotgun blast straightened him.
VII
SAM DROPPED
the tub and drew his pistol, turning in behind a thick-boled cottonwood. The horse was down on its knees before the open door of the kitchen, its nose in the dirt. It toppled as he watched, kicking spasmodically, and then was still.
Sam ran from tree to tree, angling toward the house, keeping the entire house under surveillance. He saw nothing moving as he neared the stone pile, taut, tense, ready to shoot.
He came to the last tree and the open space surrounding the house. He stopped there but only for a moment. He sucked in his breath and went at a long-legged lope toward the kitchen window. He made the house without drawing fire, pressing against the solid stone, debating his next move.
Sam listened, hearing nothing. He took a look around and then edged up to the window, peering over the sill from a kneeling position. There was no one inside. He stared in anger and amazement at the rigging near the door. Someone had set a deadly trap for him. A double-barreled shotgun, his own, was tied to a table that had been pushed up before the door. Twine ran from the trigger to the cook stove, then to the door. When the thirsty horse nudged the door open the shotgun fired, killing the animal.
Sam kept his gun in his hand as he walked around the corner. The horse was dead. He stepped over the animal and edged through the door, the frame splintered from
a
double charge of double-ought buckshot. He went through the house room by room and found nothing. He came back to the kitchen and stood there, still holding his gun. He absently returned it to the holster and surveyed the room. Whoever had rigged the trap had used everything belonging to Sam—the gun, ammunition, twine—and it indicated to Sam that it had been a spur of the moment arrangement.
He smiled grimly and set about putting the place in order.
After breakfast the next morning, Sam headed out for his rendezvous with Sheriff Alonzo Winner. It was early morning; the heat had not yet settled down to burn the land still more. The dogs ranged ahead, to the side, dropping back and then passing him. He had not hunted- with them for some time and they were happy to be out again.
Winner was waiting beside the cottonwood, his camp fire almost out. He was dusty and needed a shave, his eyes red-rimmed from lack of sleep. He squatted beside his dying fire as Sam dismounted and said, "There's a bit of coffee left, Sam."
"You look kind of beat," Sam said and took the tin cup Winner offered. He poured the coffee carefully so as not to disturb the grounds in the bottom of the pot. He called the dogs that were sniffing around Winner's horse and ordered them to lie. They obeyed on the first command, watching Sam's face as he sipped the coffee.
Winner picked a 'coffee ground from his tongue. "I am. Feel like I been run through a meat grinder." He gazed into the fire. "You think those dogs can track a man on a horse?"
Sam nodded. "Sure. They've done it before. In fact I was up at daybreak this morning, tracking a man on a horse."
Winner stared at Sam.
"Somebody set a shotgun trap for me, Alonzo," he said, and related how his own Greener had been rigged to fire when the door opened. "Killed my horse. It could have been me. I let the dogs have a whiff of that glove you gave me and put them on the trail. They went straight as the crow flies to Kenton's J Bar K."
"Jesse Kenton wouldn't do anything like that," Winner said, shaking his head.
"Not Kenton," Sam agreed. "Marv Teller, Alonzo. Jesse doesn't have to do dirty work. Not with a dog like Teller working for him."
"You can't prove it in a court of law, Sam."
"No, I can't. But I'll bet you a dollar against a plugged nickel that this trail here will head straight to Kenton range." "Kenton's got a dozen riders."
"I've had trouble with just one of them," Sam said, rising. "Let's go."
The mountains were etched in purple ink against a blue sky. The sun beat down, forcing them out of their coats. The wind lifted sheets of dust and rattled the sage and bent the pine trees. It was a land of death with no living thing in sight except the two horses, the two dogs ranging ahead, and the sweating men.
Several times they had to wait while the dogs ran back and forth
where
Squaw Creek, now powder dry, emerged from Squaw Canyon. Sam sat his horse, watching patiently, a smile twitching at his lips as the dogs fought one another to find the trail. Pat gave a short bay 'and trotted up the canyon, his tail erect, his nose to the ground. Mike tried to shoulder him aside.