Slocum and the Sulfur Valley Widows by Jake Logan

Author:Jake Logan
Language: eng
Format: epub
Publisher: Penguin Publishing Group

14

Turkey Creek Park was a remote place deep in the Chiricuhuas which rustlers had used years before to change brands on ill-gotten stock—horses and cattle. Most of those individuals had either ridden on or swung from a tree limb. The Grant Ranch hands, using the GFT brand, had been working cattle for the man. Lots of loose stock up in the canyons had gone unclaimed for years. The threat of an Apache outbreak and them sweeping down through that area was one reason. The absence of Brochious Bill made it safer to roam the mountains too. The onetime bandit leader, whom the Earps claimed to have shot while in pursuit of stage robbers, had simply disappeared from the region. Brochious’s alleged reputation for murdering folks for their possessions kept the well-informed out of the mountains too.

Caychem reported that Grant’s crew had set up housekeeping in Bill’s old cabin and they kept a herd of cow ponies to ride. The horses were turned out of Bill’s pens with a boy to wrangle them each day as they grazed, and he brought them back at night. Big steers were held in the pens and fed hay until they had enough to drive up to the main ranch. Cows and calves were driven in each day. The babies were cut, branded, and ear marked, then them and their mommas were turned out.

A smooth enough cow deal, Slocum decided, from the scout’s description. Though he soon saw that many of the calves that bore new GFT brands, however, did not match their mother’s scorched marks. Many were stray cattle that had hidden in the canyons for years, no doubt driven in there originally by rustlers. Several big bulls without marks were also cut and marked accordingly. The team worked smooth enough with a cook that stayed at camp and the young horse wrangler; five ranch hands did the hard riding, brush popping and working the stock as well.

None of the outfit carried the tough edge of Ryhmer and his bunch—still if they were going to bring Grant to terms Slocum needed to interrupt this operation.

“Can you make us some war paint?” Slocum asked, watching a rider disappear into the junipers and bring a horn-swinging half longhorn-durham cow and her big bull calf out on the flats.

“What color?”

“Red, black, and yellow?”

“Sure, what we do with it?”

“Scare the pants off that boy down there chousing that pair.” Slocum was bellied down beside the scout on the ridge watching the gathering enterprise.

“Take me a day.” Caychem stood and then disappeared.

Slocum scowled after him. Hell, he didn’t have to run off just then, though watching them work cattle was getting old. He rose up and headed for his own horse. Be after sundown before he was back at Myra’s.

“Where’s Caychem?” she asked when he returned.

“Went off to make war paint.”

“Huh?” she asked, looking all around outside the front door.

“We decided we needed war paint to scare them cowboys off. He ran off to make some.”

“Oh.”

“Hell, he just agreed to do it, got up, and rode away when I mentioned it.

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