Land Grab: Jim Hatfield takes a hand in a range war! (Prologue Western) Read online

  LAND GRAB

  JACKSON COLE

  a division of F+W Media, Inc.

  CONTENTS

  Cover

  Title Page

  CHAPTER I

  CHAPTER II

  CHAPTER III

  CHAPTER IV

  CHAPTER V

  CHAPTER VI

  CHAPTER VII

  CHAPTER VIII

  CHAPTER IX

  CHAPTER X

  Also Available

  Copyright

  CHAPTER I

  CAPTAIN BILL MCDOWELL, Commander of the Border Battalion of the Texas Rangers, looked up from the letter he was reading.

  “Jim,” he said to his lieutenant and ace man, “there’s a feller coming to see me in a few minutes. I want you to hear what he has to say, but I don’t want him to get a good look at you. When he shows up, mosey over into a corner and read a newspaper or something. Keep the paper in front of your face. I don’t think he’ll pay any attention to you. Strikes me as the sort that concentrates on the business at hand and don’t pay much attention to what’s going on around him, especially if he’s on the prod about something, as he evidently is.”

  Jim Hatfield, who a taciturn old Lieutenant of Rangers had named the Lone Wolf, nodded, but did not otherwise comment.

  “Feller named Justin Flint, big lumberman,” added Captain Bill. “I’ve a notion what he’ll have to say will interest you, will build up to something you sort of fancy — trouble!”

  Hatfield smiled, the firm lips of his rather wide mouth quirking upward at the corners, revealing even teeth that were startling white against his deeply bronzed cheeks.

  “I don’t go looking for trouble, suh,” he protested mildly in a deep, musical voice.

  “Oh, no?” Captain Bill remarked dryly. “I don’t forget the first time you came into my office, a few years back, rarin’ and chargin’ and fit to be tied You weren’t looking for trouble then, eh?”

  This time Hatfield didn’t smile. His eyes, an unusual shade of green, seemed to turn a bit smoky.

  “You’ll recollect, suh, that I had considerable reason for being on the prod about then,” he remarked quietly.

  Captain Bill nodded. “Yes, I know,” he said. “You were just out of college. Wideloopers had murdered your dad and run off his cows. You were all set to ride the vengeance trail, proper. Said you aimed to gut-shoot the buzzards and leave ‘em to die sweatin’.”

  “Yes,” Hatfield said, “and you showed me that riding the vengeance trail and taking the law into your own hands is risky business and likely to end you up on the wrong side of the law. You offered me a job with the Rangers, pointing out that then I could do the chore in a law-abiding manner, with all the prestige of organized society back of me — for this I can never be too grateful.”

  Captain Bill nodded again. “And you did the chore after a tough chase,” he said, “and you’ve come a long ways since then. Don’t reckon you regret staying with the Rangers instead of going on and being an engineer as you planned to when you went to college…. Yes, you did the chore.” He cocked his grizzled head sideways as solid, decisive boot-heels pounded the boardwalk outside.

  “Here comes Flint,” he said. “Get in the clear, Jim.”

  Hatfield retired to a corner, sat down, hooked the high heels of his riding boots over the chair rung and spread a newspaper before his face.

  Justin Flint entered the office in the manner of a belligerent steer bursting through a corral gate.

  “Captain McDowell?” he barked.

  The Ranger Captain nodded.

  “I’m Justin Flint,” the visitor announced gruffly.

  “Glad to know you, Mr. Flint,” said Captain Bill. “Got something you want to tell me?”

  Flint told him. The words came out in an angry flood. Captain Bill listened patiently until the other had finished, then he said,

  “Sorry, suh, but the Rangers don’t do guard duty for private enterprise.” Captain Bill spoke the words decisively, shaking his head to emphasize them.

  Flint glared and stiffened.

  “I don’t see — ” he began.

  “Besides,” Captain Bill cut in, “You’ve got a sheriff up there, from all accounts a good one. I reckon it’s sort of up to him to keep order in a local affair like what you’ve been tellin’ me about, Mr. Flint.”

  Justin Flint snapped his fingers with the intensity of a small pistol shot. He was a blockily built man with big, knotty hands and abnormally long arms. His square, close-cropped head, his large features, his alert eyes, were those of a fighter.

  “The sheriff!” he exclaimed in tones of disgust. “We can’t look for any help from Sheriff Tays. He’s solid for those cattle owners. Clyde Cranley, who’s the big boss of the lot, got him elected, and I guess it’s natural for Tays to feel beholden to Cranley. Tays will side with him and his associates no matter what happens.”

  “From what I’ve heard tell of John Tays, he’ll be just to all parties, no matter where his interest lies,” observed Captain Bill. “I’m ready to tell you that.”

  “And suppose I told you,” growled Flint, “that he has already done just the opposite?”

  “I’ve a notion I’d say maybe you were makin’ a mistake,” Captain Bill replied dryly.

  Flint snorted. “Maybe I am,” he agreed unexpectedly, “but I don’t think so. Maybe Tays really believes that the cattlemen are not to blame for the things that have happened to my property and my workers, but if he does, he’s dumber than most sheriffs I’ve met, and that’s saying plenty.

  “But I don’t intend to stand for it, Captain McDowell,” he continued, pounding the Ranger Captain’s desk with his fist. “If the Rangers and other authorities won’t afford me protection, I’ll hire guards myself to uphold me in my rights.”

  “Taking the law into your own hands, Mr. Flint, is risky business,” said Captain Bill. “When you do that, no matter how justified you figure you are, you’re mighty likely, sooner or later, to find yourself outside the law.”

  “I’ll risk it!” growled Flint. “It won’t be the first time!”

  “Sort of a big man in the lumber business, aren’t you, Mr. Flint?” he stated rather than asked.

  “I don’t know about that,” replied Flint. “I have run some big camps and handled large projects and I have extensive interests, if that’s what you mean.”

  Captain Bill nodded. “Sort of used to runnin’ your enterprises right up to the hilt, eh?”

  “I keep all the strings in my own hands,” Flint replied.

  “For a good many years you sort of been a law unto yourself, I figure,” continued the Ranger Captain. “Sort of got used to doin’ things that way. Well, Mr. Flint, right now you’re headin’ up against men of your own kind. Clyde Cranley has sort of been used to runnin’ things his own way, too, for a good many years. I reckon he don’t take over-kind to havin’ somebody horn in on his preserves, as it were. Reckon you’ve sort of got Cranley riled and on the prod, even though you may be within your rights. Cranley’s kind ain’t easy to buck.”

  “I don’t want to buck him. I don’t want to buck anybody,” Flint instantly countered. “All I want is to be left alone within my legal rights.”

  “As I understand it,” went on Captain Bill, “you bought up a lot of land at the west end of Montuoso Valley, and settled your workers on it.”

  “That’s right,” Flint agreed.

  “And fenced the land.”

  “Right again.”

  “That end of the valley has always been open range,” Capta
in Bill commented.

  Flint leaned forward, and his large mouth tightened. That mouth, Captain Bill sensed, could clamp tight in merciless ferocity should occasion warrant.

  “Yes, it was open range,” replied the lumberman, “but the cattle owners never had title to it. I investigated thoroughly before I made the purchase from the State. I secured title, secured it legally and above-board. I paid for that land and I own it. I have a right to do as I please with it.”

  Captain Bill nodded agreement. “You have,” he admitted, “but that don’t make what you did set any better with the cattlemen who have been in that section for years. It’s not unnatural that they should feel sort of hostile toward you.”

  “The law is on my side,” Flint persisted.

  “It is,” McDowell admitted, “and your rights will be upheld; but just the same I’ve a notion you’re likely to have trouble if you don’t come down off your high horse and sort of get t’gether with Clyde Cranley and his bunch.”

  “He and his bunch can get together with me,” Flint growled stubbornly. “I’m not looking for trouble, but I haven’t a habit of sidestepping it if it comes my way unwanted. What I want to know is, do I get protection from the depredations of those brigands?”

  “I’ve received letters from the cattlemen up there asking for protection against your men,” Captain Bill remarked. “They claim they’ve had nothin’ but trouble ever since you started cuttin’ on the hills north of the valley.”

  “They would!” spat Flint, viciously biting off the end of a fresh cigar.

  “If I post Rangers to protect you against the cattlemen, and post more to protect the cattlemen against your hands, I won’t have any left to attend to the trouble bustin’ loose along the Border and other places,” Captain Bill added in tones of finality.

  Justin Flint stood up, blocky, rugged, arrogant.

  “All right,” he said, “I’ve done my part and come to you. I’ll tell you again, I don’t propose to be walked over. I’ll fight my own battles and not ask for help.”

  With a short nod, he strode to the door, opened it and slammed it after him. Captain McDowell speculated the closed door.

  “Snorty old shorthorn, ain’t he, Jim?” the Ranger Captain chuckled.

  “Sort of,” Jim Hatfield agreed laconically.

  “Nose like a double-barrelled shotgun!” Captain Bill chuckled again. “Got the look all the time of wantin’ to charge right ahead and tromp. Him and Clyde Cranley are as alike as twin calfs in their ways of thinkin’. If them two do tangle horns, there’ll be some prime neck twistin’.”

  “And a lot of innocent folks likely to get horned before the wring is over,” Hatfield commented.

  “That’s what I’m scared of,” Captain Bill admitted. He stared out the window, his eyes somber.

  “Never been up in that section, have you, Jim?” he asked his lieutenant.

  Hatfield shook his black head. “Never have,” he replied.

  “Nobody up there likely to know you.”

  “Chances are,” Hatfield agreed.

  “And I notice you took mighty good care to keep that newspaper in front of your face all the time Flint was in here,” Captain Bill added shrewdly. “Looks like you must have had a hunch.”

  Jim Hatfield said nothing, but there was a look of pleased anticipation in his strangely colored eyes.

  “From what I’ve seen and heard of them, I figure loggers to be a pretty salty lot,” Captain Bill went on. “And Flint said most of his settlers are from Kentucky and Tennessee, and fellers from those sections ain’t usually Sunday School fodder, either. If an outfit like that tangles with the Montuoso Valley cowhands, there’ll be a pretty kettle of hell bust loose. Nope, we can’t have that happen.”

  He paused, gazing out the window toward the distant hills.

  “I reckon, Jim, you’d better take a little ride,” he concluded.

  • • •

  Men said that Cabeza de Vaca — Head of a Bull — the first Spaniard to wander over Texas, named Montuoso Valley because of the peculiar, low, dome-like hills that started up so unexpectedly from the valley floor. The valley was really a long and very wide box canyon walled north and south by beetling cliffs, towering hundreds of feet into the Texas sky. From where Jim Hatfield rode the trail that wound toward the setting sun, the south wall of the valley was but a misty blur against the skyline. The north wall was only a few miles distant, shooting up its dark crags to the rimrock fully three hundred feet above a lofty and wide bench that formed the crest of a ragged, brush-grown, boulder-strewn slope that swelled from the very edge of the trail.

  As Hatfield continued his ride, the slope narrowed, until the brush-covered lip of the bench was not more than half a mile distant.

  Beyond the northern cliffs he could see, swelling into the sky and perhaps ten miles away, a great mountain slope, the crest of which was grown with magnificent timber — Western Yellow Pine — one of the most valuable of lumber trees.

  Hatfield’s eyes narrowed with disapproval as he noted that the vast slope of the mountainside was dotted with tall stumps and a weird tangle of trimmings from the forest giants that had been felled.

  There was something obscene about this seemingly endless leprous blotch, mute evidence to man’s callousness and greed. Here trees that were growing when Coronado and his iron men of Spain passed this way, more than three hundred years before, had been ruthlessly slaughtered, their dismembered limbs left to rot on the soft carpet of needles, the deep humus that had been building up for untold centuries to hold, sponge-like, the rains and the melting snows.

  “Wasteful cutting,” the Ranger muttered. He experienced a sudden dislike of Justin Flint, who had told Captain McDowell that on the mountain slopes beyond Montuoso Valley were his holdings.

  The valley, Hatfield had noted in the course of his ride toward its western mouth, was wonderful rangeland grown deep in needle and wheat grasses. Numerous clumps of trees and wide thickets offered shelter from sun and storm. Springs were plentiful, each the source of a little stream winding westward to reach at length, perhaps, the stately Rio Grande. He had seen on his way up the valley several ranch houses set on hilltops amid sheltering groves. There were plenty of cattle in evidence, wearing different brands.

  “Uh-huh, unfenced range, and mighty fine range,” he told Goldy, his sorrel horse. “Sort of natural that folks here don’t take over-kind to newcomers, particularly the sort that build fences. But the newcomers have their rights, too, and so long as they don’t tromp on toes that aren’t out of place, they have to be considered. June along, jughead, the sun’s getting down the sky and I figure it’s still nigh onto fifteen miles or so to that town at the mouth of the valley Flint spoke about. Vega, I believe he said the name was.”

  Goldy quickened his pace and Hatfield resumed his study of the peculiar topography of the valley. He passed several of the low hills that swelled apparently without cause from the rolling floor. They were usually brush and grass grown, with a bristle of thickets on their crests. Now and then, however, one was a barren butte, its sides deeply scored by dry washes, so that the shaley core was visible.

  Suddenly the Ranger’s attention was distracted from the mounds to the high bench above the boulder strewn slope. A few hundred yards in front of where he rode, the brush-fringed lip of the bench was violently agitated. From the growth a horse shot like a popgun ball and careened wildly down the precipitous slope. A rider clung like a burr to his back, hunching low in the saddle, and despite the obvious hazards of the descent, screwing his head around to look over his shoulder.

  “That feller trying to take the big jump?” Hatfield wondered aloud. “Must be plumb loco!”

  The plunging animal was perhaps half way down the slope, slipping and sliding, keeping his footing by miracles of agility, when again the brush-fringed lip of the bench was agitated. Two more horsemen burst through the fringe and pulled their mounts to a snorting halt on the crumbling edge. Hatfield saw a glint o
f metal and a puff of smoke.

  The report of the rifle rang loudly and bounced back from the cliff face in reverberating echoes. The horse on the slope gave a human-like scream, reared high and came down in a floundering heap. His rider was catapulted from the saddle to the ground where he lay writhing.

  Again there was a glint of shifted metal on the bench lip, and again the crash of a shot. The writhing body of the thrown man jerked spasmodically, and was still. A third shot crashed from the bench.

  With a muttered oath, Hatfield jerked Goldy to a halt. With smooth speed he slid his heavy Winchester from where it snugged in the saddle boot under his left thigh. His eyes, coldly gray, glinted along the sights.

  “Murdering sidewinders!” he growled as his finger squeezed the trigger.

  The boom of the shot was answered by a yell of pain from the bench. Hatfield saw one of the drygulchers reel in the saddle and paw madly at his left shoulder. The other whirled sideways and snapped a shot at the Ranger. Hatfield felt the wind of a passing slug as he pressed the trigger a second time.

  Another yell sounded from above. Then the pair whirled their horses and vanished into the growth. To the Ranger’s straining ears came the pound of hoofs on the hard surface of the bench. The sound quickly diminished and ceased.

  “Hightailed, all right,” the Lone Wolf muttered, slipping fresh cartridges into the magazine of his rifle. “Now what the hell is this all about? Looks like they did for that poor devil up there. Sprout wings, hoss, and we’ll go see.”

  Goldy obediently started scrambling up the slope. More than once before he made it to where the plugged rider lay, Hatfield felt that he really would need wings; but the sorrel made his steely legs and agile hoofs serve. Hatfield narrowly scanned the bristling lip of the bench as he ascended the slope, but the growth remained void of sound or motion. The two drygulchers evidently had other business in urgent need of attention and decided not to pause to settle accounts with him.

  Rather to Hatfield’s surprise, the man was not dead when he finally reached him. He was unconscious, however, breathing in stertorous gasps, with a bloody froth rising and falling on his ashen lips. There was a deep cut in his head that the Lone Wolf decided was not as bad as it looked. His face was grave, however, as he examined a bullet hole just below the left shoulder blade. It was bluish and only a few drops of blood had seeped out. Investigation showed no corresponding puncture in the breast.