Stands a Calder Man (36 page)

“Did you drive it?” he asked.

“I tried.” She laughed. “It bucked worse than a wild
horse. I couldn't get those pedals on the floor to work right. ‘Clutching,' is that what you call it?” She asked Bull to verify the term, and he nodded. “And you have to grip the wheel with both hands. It jerks your arms so on rough ground trying to hold on to it that I'll probably be sore for a week. But it was so much fun.”

“I can tell.” Webb smiled at her. “It's so good to hear you laugh.”

Her expression became quietly thoughtful as she smoothed a hand over the waistline of her black dress and glanced at her old friend and companion. “I guess Bull has always known how to make a girl feel good, if only for a little while.”

“I try, Lorna. I try.” Bull Giles was smiling widely, but a kind of hurt flickered in his eyes. “Is there any coffee left? I believe I'd like one more cup.”

“There is.” His mother reached for the service to fill his cup. “Webb, how about you?”

“No—” His refusal was interrupted by the sound of the front door opening. Webb lifted his head as the scuffle of boots and clanking spurs approached the dining room.

Ike Willis and Nate Moore walked in, and removed their hats the minute they noticed a woman was present. Ike's face was streaked with the same dust that powdered his clothes. Both men had serious looks etched in their faces.

“What's up?” Webb glanced from one to the other, his eyes narrowing slightly as he waited for one of them to speak.

“We've got a family of squatters over on the east rim,” Ike said.

“The east rim?” A frown was forming. “On our land?”

“Yup. They cut the fence and drove their wagon right through,” Ike reported, turning his hat in his hand. “There's six of 'em, a man and his wife, two older boys, and a couple of young'uns. I found 'em camped about a mile in where that big hollow is.

They'd chopped down a couple of young cottonwoods growing along that dry wash and were riggin' up a tent. I rode in and told them they were on private property and to git, but the man said you had no claim to the land. And his boys had a pair of rifles to back it up. So I hightailed it back here.”

“Get four of the boys and have the horses saddled and ready to ride at first light,” Webb ordered.

“What are you aimin' to do?” Nate inquired with watching interest.

“I'm going to have a talk with this family, explain a few facts; then we'll escort them back through that break in the fence,” he replied. “The man's got his family with him, so he isn't likely to make trouble.”

“I reckon not.” Nate nodded in agreement. “Guess we'll see you in the morning. Good night, Mrs. Calder, Bull.”

When the men had left, Bull Giles tapped his cigar in the glass tray and slid a sideways look at Webb. “I did tell you there would always be someone wanting to take it away from you, either in slices or the whole pie.” He reminded Webb of the conversation they'd had on the porch over two years ago.

“You did,” he admitted with a recollection turned grim by the present situation. “Now we've got squatters.”

“I can't say that I'm surprised,” Bull mused. “All the free land worth filing on has been claimed. The latecomers, the poor ones with no money, can't afford to buy land. They probably don't even have the money to go back to wherever they're from, so they plop themselves down on a chunk of land and try to establish squatters' rights. It's worked in the past.”

“It won't work here,” Webb stated.

“Don't underestimate them,” Bull advised. “They are desperate people. All of these drylanders are, for the most part. I'm not talking about the farmers that came here from Iowa, Minnesota, or Kansas. It's the others, the majority that are immigrants.”

When Bull paused, Webb remained silent. He couldn't help thinking of Lilli while Bull was speaking about the drylanders.

“They are hungry for land, so hungry that they'll take anything, good or bad, free land or someone else's.” Bull released a short laugh of quiet incredulity. “Just the other day I heard they were filing on land in the Missouri Flats of the upper Madison. At that altitude, wheat can't even mature.”

“The others, the ones that were here first, they seem to be doing all right,” Webb commented, still thinking of Lilli and her husband, and the wheat harvests they had made.

“They've been growing wheat, lots of it,” Bull conceded. “From what I've been able to learn, it's only enough to get them from one year to the next. Every year, they have to borrow money to buy seed. When they sell their wheat, they pay off the bank and have enough left to squeak through the winter. Next year, they always hope it will be better.”

“I've heard that some have bought additional land so they can plant more wheat and increase their profits.” It was what Lilli's husband had done.

“What some people fail to realize, and others who don't care, is that three hundred and twenty acres in Montana is equal to about thirty acres in Illinois or Iowa. Doubt that and you've got sixty. You can't make much of a living off sixty acres.”

“Then you are saying they'll never get ahead,” his mother said with a tiny frown.

“A few might make it, but the majority won't.” He shook his head. “Don't forget, the price of wheat has never been this high. As long as there's trouble in Europe and England and France are at war with Germany, it will probably hold. But you've watched the cattle market go up and down over the years. The grain market isn't going to stay at its present level forever. No one seems to be looking that far ahead. Not even the banks. That new bank in Blue Moon, the one old Tom Pettit's son Doyle has half-interest in, they
have outstanding loans that are more than double what they have on deposit. The bottom's going to drop out of everything one of these days.” He rolled the cigar between his lips, then took it away to study the building ashes. “I'd be careful where I kept my money.”

During the months Bull had been staying with them, Webb had discovered he was a wise counsel. Practical experience had given Webb knowledge of cattle, men, and the market, but he was learning some of the finer points of politics and other economic influences from Bull Giles. The Triple C Ranch was nearly as big as some of the eastern states, but it was affected by what happened outside its boundaries.

“By the way, it's official that Bulfert is running for the Senate,” Bull informed Webb. “You might want to give some serious thought to supporting his campaign.”

“Are you recommending it?” Webb smiled.

There was a responding smile, tinged with wryness. “Just as long as you don't trust him too far.”

It was midmorning when the small band of riders approached the large depression in the rolling plains of the east rim section. They weren't within sight of the squatters' camp, but Webb noticed the puff of dust ahead of them.

“Looks like they had someone watching for us.” Nate had observed it, too.

Webb merely nodded. When they came onto the rounded lip of the hollow, he saw the squatters' camp below. A dirty gray tent stood next to a wagon. Wisps of smoke were curling up from a dying campfire in front of the tent where a woman was hurrying two small children inside. A scrawny lad of about fourteen was trotting two horses toward the thin stand of cotton-woods behind the tent. A second boy, not much older, was standing next to the wagon with a man who was obviously his father.

A clod of dirt was kicked up in front of Webb's horse, followed immediately by the crack of a rifle. The chestnut horse shied briefly, tossing back its head.

Webb swung his mount at right angles with the camp and halted it as the riders behind him crowded in and stopped.

“That damned fool just shot at us!” Ike exclaimed. “We're out of range.” Webb had already gauged the distance.

Another clod of dirt and grass went flying two feet in front of them, and a pulsebeat later the sound of the shot came. This time he saw the puff of smoke from the rifle. The squatter was using the wagon wheel for a gunrest. Webb's horse rolled an eye and chewed nervously on the bit.

“Do you suppose he knows we're out of range?” Nate inquired. “Could be just a warning for us to keep our distance.”

“If he didn't know it before, he knows it now.” Webb regarded it as unimportant as he reached to loosen the flap of his scabbard and drag out his rifle.

“If he's out of range, we're out of range.” Nate eyed the rifle as if Webb should have figured that out.

“Glad you mentioned that.” There was a trace of a smile on his mouth as Webb unknotted the kerchief around his throat and tied it to the end of his rifle. “You boys stay here while I see if I can't ride down there and talk some sense to him before someone gets hurt.”

Nate reached down for his rifle. “I got the feeling that ole boy ain't too interested in talking. We'll keep you covered just in case.”

The kerchief wasn't white, but the message was just the same. Webb reined the chestnut around, the rifle butt resting on his thigh and the muzzle aimed at the sky with the kerchief waving a truce banner. His mount was not too sure of this whole business and moved forward at a mincing walk. Webb kept his gaze fixed sharply on the man and boy as they were joined by the second boy, also carrying a rifle. He was just passing the area where the first two shots had ripped up clods of dirt when he saw the rifles being lifted to their shoulders.

“Don't be damned fools,” Webb muttered under his breath and kept kneeing his reluctant horse forward. It might just be they wanted to keep him in their sights in case he tried anything.

A second later he saw the flash and recoil of the squatter's rifle. In nearly the same instant, Webb sank his spurs into the chestnut and spun it to the right. The horse almost jumped out from under him, issuing a snorting squeal at the sting of a bullet grazing its rump. It bounded into a run, angling for the rounded rim. There was a burst of shots from both sides that left the smell of powder smoke in the air.

The short barrage from the riders had sent the squatter and his sons scurrying for cover behind the wagon, hitting no one but coming close enough to scare them. When Webb had safely rejoined them, the shooting stopped.

“I had a notion they weren't going to be reasonable,” Nate declared.

“What now?” Ike looked at Webb. “It'd be a bit foolhardy to go chargin' down there like we were the cavalry. They got the wagon for cover.”

“Do you want me to slip over there?” A new rider with the outfit by the name of Virg Haskell indicated the north rim of the hollow. “The camp would be within range from there. I could start slappin' some shots around that wagon, keep them pinned down while the rest of you ride in.”

“No.” Webb rejected that suggestion. “There's too much risk a stray shot might injure the woman and those two children in the tent. I've got a better idea. “Ike—” He turned in his saddle to face the rider as he gave his instructions. “You, Slim, Virgil, and Hank gather up a good-sized bunch of steers. Once you've got them together, we'll stampede them through the camp and follow them in. The rest of us will stay here and keep an eye on things.”

After the four cowboys had pulled away from the knoll to begin rounding up some of the steers grazing
this section of the range, Webb swung out of his saddle. Nate hooked a knee across his saddlehorn and began rolling a cigarette.

“That squatter is going to figure you're sending for reinforcements.” Nate peered down at the camp while he licked at the paper. “He's already acting nervous about where the boys went.”

“He just don't know our reinforcements are the four-footed kind,” Webb said dryly as he examined the slight flesh wound that had laid a red track across the top of the chestnut's rump. It shifted nervously under his touch, “You'll live, fella,” Webb pronounced and absently stroked its neck.

The sun was almost directly overhead before Webb heard the lowing of moving cattle. There were about fifty steers in the bunch the riders had collected and were driving toward the hollow. Climbing into the saddle, Webb swung the chestnut around to join up with the small herd.

“That squatter is really going to be wonderin' what's up now.” Nate chuckled as he brought his horse alongside the chestnut.

“He won't be wondering for long.”

Slim Trumbo and Ike Willis were riding the swing position at the front of the herd. Webb and the other riders doubled up in the flank and drag posts. When the steers crested the knoll, rifles were fired in the air to start them running. Slim and Ike raced alongside the leaders until they were assured the steers were heading directly for the wagon. Then they fell back with the other riders, using the herd as a protective shield to enter the squatters' camp.

The running cattle avoided the flapping canvas of the tent and split in two groups to flow around the wagon, forcing the man and his sons to scramble under it or be run over by the range-wild steers. Before the last animal had charged past the wagon, the riders were peeling out of their saddles. There was a brief scuffle with the man and his sons before they were disarmed.

“Check the tent and be sure they're all right.” Webb
directed the order at Slim Trumbo, then confronted the squatter and his skinny, carrot-haired boys. They were a pitiful sight in their ragged clothes and underfed bodies. The man faced him, his eyes glaring with a pride that showed a fine mist of tears. “I don't know who you are, mister, or what you thought you were doing, but somebody could have got hurt.” He had to harden himself against the sight of the hollow-cheeked woman and the two big-eyed children emerging from the tent ahead of Slim. “You should have had a care for them, if not yourself.”

“I have a care, and that's to put food in their bellies,” the squatter retorted, showing no remorse under the circumstances.