Free Riding for the Brand (Ss) (1986) by Louis L'amour Page A

if he wants a job. With Pete Vorys around, we'll have to be huntin' strangers or we'll be out of help!"
    The mirror on the wall of the bunkhouse was neither cracked nor marred, but Rock Casady could almost wish that it was. Bathed and shaved, he looked into the tortured eyes of a dark, attractive young man with wavy hair and a strong jaw.
    People had told him many times that he was a handsome man, but when he looked into his eyes j he knew he looked into the eyes of a coward.
    He had a yellow streak.
    The first time well, the first time but one that he had faced a man with a gun he had backed down cold. He had run like a baby. He had shown the white feather.
    Tall, strongly built, skillful with rope or horse, knowing with stock, he was a top hand in any outfit. An outright genius with guns, men had often said they would hate to face him in a shootout. He had worked hard and played rough, getting the most out of life until that day in the saloon in El Paso when Ben Kerr, gunman and cattle rustler, gambler and bully, had called him, and he had backed down. tom Bell was a knowing and kindly man.
    Aware that something was riding Casady, he told him his job and left him alone. Stockman watched him top off a bad bronc on the first morning and glanced at Bell.
    "If he does everything like he rides, we've got us a hand!"
    And Casady did everything as well. A week after he had hired out he was doing as much work as any two men. And the jobs they avoided, the lonely jobs, he accepted eagerly.
    "Notice something else?" Stockman asked the ranch owner one morning. "That new hand sure likes the jobs that keep him away from the ranch."
    Stockman nodded. "Away from people. It ain't natural, tom. He ain't been to Three Lakes once since he's been here."
    Sue Landon looked up at her uncle. "Maybe he's broke"... She exclaimed. "No cowhand could have fun in town when he's broke!"
    Bell shook his head. "It ain't that, Sue. He had money when he first come in here. I saw it. He had anyway two hundred dollars, and for a forty-a-month cowpoke, that's a lot of money!"
    "Notice something else?" Stockman asked.
    "He never packs a gun. Only man on the ranch who doesn't. You'd better warn him about Pete Vorys."
    "I did."... Bell frowned. "I can't figure this hombre, Boss. I did warn him, and that was the very day he began askin' for all the bad jobs.
    Why, he's the only man on the place who'll fetch grub to Cat McLeod without bein' bullied into it!"
    "Over in that Rock Canyon country?" Stockman smiled. "That's a rough ride for any man. I don't blame the boys, but you've got to hand it to old Cat. He's killed nine lions and forty-two coyotes in the past ninety days! If he keeps that up we won't have so much stock lost!"
    "Two bad he ain't just as good on rustlers.
    Maybe"... Bell grinned, "we ought to turn him loose on Pete Vorys!"
    Rock Casady kept his palouse gelding moving steadily. The two packhorses ambled placidly behind, seemingly content to be away from the ranch. The old restlessness was coming back to Casady, and he had been on the Three Spoke only a few weeks. He knew they liked him, knew that despite his taciturn manner and desire to be alone the hands liked him as well as did Stockman or Bell.
    He did his work and more, and he was a hand.
    He avoided poker games that might lead to trouble and stayed away from town. He was anxiously figuring some way to be absent from the ranch on the following Saturday, for he knew the whole crowd was going to a dance and shindig in Three Lakes.
    While he talked little, he heard much. He was aware of impending trouble between the Three Spoke Wheel outfit and the gang of Pete Vorys.
    The latter, who seemed to ride the country as he pleased, owned a small ranch north of Three Lakes, near town. He had a dozen tough hands and usually spent money freely. All his hands had money, and while no one dared say it, all knew he was rustling.
    Yet he was not the ringleader. Behind him there was someone else, someone who had