Free Ralph Compton The Convict Trail by Ralph Compton Page B

that bunch.”
    He finished his smoke, then swung out of the saddle and walked back to the wagon, where Sam was already unhitching the team.
    â€œHey, Kane,” Stringfellow yelled, “we’re burnin’ up in here. Let us out so we can set in the shade fer a spell.”
    â€œYou thirsty?” the marshal asked.
    â€œHell no. We’re not thirsty—we’re hot. Look at that sun, you damned idiot. It’s scorching our hides.”
    Kane nodded. He got the water bucket from the back of the wagon and filled it at the creek. He walked back to the wagon, smiled at Stringfellow, then threw the contents of the bucket in his face. “That ought to cool you down some.”
    Stringfellow spluttered and shook his head, spraying water. “Damn you, Kane, you’re as mean as a curly wolf.”
    â€œGood thing for you to remember, Buff.” The marshal pulled his vest away from his gun belt. “When it comes to downright meanness an’ cussedness, the only thing that separates me from you is this here badge.”
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    The day had begun its shade into night when Kane and Sam caught up with the herd. The cattle, Herefords mostly with a few longhorns, were bedded down along a creek surrounded on three sides by a shallow arc of pine and hardwood forest. To the west, the setting sun was a scarlet pool making its way down a draw between swollen, purple rain clouds. The air smelled of trees and the dusty heat of the dying day.
    The drovers had made camp about a hundred yards from the herd, on a bend of the creek where grew tall cottonwoods and a single willow that trailed its branches into the water. There was a small remuda and a chuck wagon, a canvas canopy rigged on one of its sides.
    As Sam swung in that direction, with the casual interest of a former cattleman, Kane took time to check out the herd. The cows all looked to be in excellent shape, fat and glossy with some yearlings among them. But one thing struck a jarring note in the marshal—even in the waning light he counted six different brands, and there were probably more.
    That meant nothing in itself. Small ranchers often banded their herds together to make a drive, though the railroads were rapidly making such arrangements a thing of the past. But the suspicion that this was a rustled herd was strong in Kane. He was going only on that sixth sense all experienced lawmen have, the little, nagging voice at the back of the head that warns them to be wary.
    When he was twenty yards from the camp, Kane drew rein, but it was Sam who took it on himself to observe the proprieties. “Hello the camp!”
    Four men, backlit by the flickering red glow of a fire, had watched them come. Now one of them called out, “Come on in, real easy an’ slow like.”
    It was not a friendly greeting, Kane decided, but it wasn’t all that unfriendly either. Kind of somewhere in between. He kicked his horse forward, then stopped when he was a few feet from the drovers. It was only then he saw that one of them was a woman. She was tall, angular, her hat hanging on the back of her shoulders from a string around her neck. She wore a split, canvas riding skirt, a white shirt and a black-and-white cowhide vest. It was the woman who spoke.
    â€œPassing through?” Her voice was light, pleasant, almost musical.
    Kane saw the woman’s head move as her eyes angled to the convict wagon. She took note of it but said nothing more.
    Kane ignored the woman’s question. “Name’s Logan Kane, Deputy Marshal for the Indian Territory, out of the Honorable Judge Isaac Parker’s court.”
    â€œDid you say Logan Kane?” This came from a tall, rangy young man whose face was shaded by the wide brim of his hat. The man wore two Remingtons, butt forward in crossed belts. It was an unusual gun rig, the first Kane had ever seen. Whoever or whatever he was, he didn’t look like a thirty-a-month drover, that was for