Free The Overlanders by Nelson Nye Page B

need every one of them. Regardless of that, Grete’s hands were tied. Idaho was in deadly earnest about Sary; whether or not he had any chance in that quarter, the gunfighter’s interest in the girl would never permit Grete to send him packing; and Farraday, in this brew he had cooking, couldn’t afford to be laughed at or ignored. He might just as well pitch in his hand as to issue an order he couldn’t make stick. The fellow would never let it come to fists again.
    Anger came up in Grete’s throat so thick it choked him. But he couldn’t find any way around his dilemma. He didn’t have to grab any gypsy’s fist to know he’d wedged himself between a rock and a hard place.
    He paused again, halfway down, to take a feel of the wind. There was precious little blowing but it made him do some shifting to come onto the flat where the brothers had built without giving their penned stock something to nicker about.
    Hereabouts the oaks were gnarled and stunted, mostly brush, mixed up considerably with thorny thickets of mesquite and catclaw. The drugged light of the moon, still furry and orange, didn’t make things any better. Employing a great deal of care he skirted the barn, pausing a further while when the log walls of the house came blackly out of the piled-up shadows. There was still no sign of movement in the yard though he could see a huddle of stock behind the nearest rump to head in the small round corral that had the post in its center. He debated getting down off his horse but decided against this.
    The place looked deserted. Grete didn’t want to be caught with the appearance of sneaking up on his layout and if the brothers were gone he dared not risk any more time in scouting. With a prickly feeling between his squared shoulders he put the horse into motion, riding openly into the pale gloom of the yard.
    Nothing happened until he got half across it when the geldings set up a racket from the horse trap, joined by the softer-pitched whickerings of the fillies. Grete reined up by the porch. “Hello, inside there — anybody home?”
    He got out of the saddle and stepped up on the porch. He called again with his glance prowling the yard and this time heard the strained groaning of bunk ropes as someone turned over and slapped bare feet to the floor. Something sharply metallic, like a gun being cocked, came out of the sounds the man made moving around. It was the older brother’s voice that called. “Who is it?”
    “Trail boss — Farraday.”
    “Be right with you.”
    Grete heard the man pulling on his pants, then the slap of his weight crossing the boards of the floor. The door was yanked open. Something gleamed in the gloom. “What’s up?” the man said.
    “Where’s your brother?”
    “What difference would that make?”
    There was an edge of suspicion in the rancher’s surly tone and this — coupled with the gun he had hold of — convinced Grete. He said, to throw the man off guard, “Take a look over here and tell me if this is him.” He wheeled then, turning as though to cross the porch but coming all the way around. One down-chopping hand knocked the gun from the rancher’s fist; Grete’s other hand, lifting, cracked him wickedly across the throat. The man gagged, staggering back. Grete, coldly furious, smashed him in the face. The man went down as though hit with a club.
    There was sweat on Grete’s cheeks. With no waste of motion he stripped the belt from the man and lashed both wrists behind him. He caught up the man’s shirt and worked the rancher’s feet down into the sleeves, afterwards buttoning it all the way up. He stuffed the fellow’s socks into his mouth and bound them in place with the rancher’s dusty neckerchief. Satisfied then that he had done all he could, he quit the house, pulling the door shut after him, and got into the saddle.
    At the gate of the corral where the fillies were penned he leaned down and yanked loose the top pair of rails. He took these with him