Following the Grass by Harry Sinclair Drago Page A

I don’t remember who I thought it was. It wa’n’t late—’bout eight thirty. A man had to yell that night to make himself heard.
    â€œI savvy Basque pretty well, and the first word I made out was zaldiak —horses. In those days the Basque gente wa’n’t particularly welcome round here. I got kinda curious right off. And the next minute I heard those horses comin’ right down into that pocket. One of the men—they was two of them—tried to strike a light, but you couldn’t make fire even thar that night.” Peter paused and reflected for a moment.
    â€œI didn’t say nu thin’,” he went on; “I knew they didn’t know I was there.”
    â€œWho was the second man?” Joseph interrupted.
    â€œAndres’s kid brother, Timoteo. The kid went on directly, but he left Andres in the pocket. Andres was to follow him on foot when he thought the time was right. Well, I was doin’ some pretty fast thinkin’. Here was hell to pay, for fair, and me not knowin’ what to do.
    â€œI wa’n’t afraid of Timoteo. I reckoned your daddy could manage him if this thing that was brewin’ was aimed at your folks. Andres had me trapped; and so we stayed thar-me under the ledge and him backed against his horse—wai tin’ and waitin’.
    â€œI guess an hour must have passed. God, it was awful. I wanted to yell and get out where they was air; I was stranglin’—Andres thar all that time, so close, and not knowin’ that I was watchin’ him.
    â€œWell, he gave a yell all of a sudden and jumpin’ into his saddle he fanned it out of thar, leadin’ the kid’s horse behind him. I got out and stretched myself directly. I hadn’t been able to do no thinkin’ with him thar.
    â€œI’d heard them tossing a word back and forth that I hadn’t savvied. It came to me, then—nippers! That meant wire! I began to see a thing or two right off. Those boys were out to cut the Circle-Z fence. Wa’n’t no other wire for ’em to cut.
    â€œI felt considerable relieved. Thad Taylor of the Circle-Z wa’n’t no bosom friend of mine. ’Let him look out for his own wire,’ I said to myself and I crawled back into my nest, thinkin’ that those boys had a good night for what they was about, whether they got away with it or not.
    â€œBut I wa’n’t any sleepier then than I am right now, which I ain’t at all. I knew if they came back, I’d hear them. More than an hour passed; nuthin’ happened. And then I heard horses comin’ on the run. I got up and listened.
    â€œIn about a minute Andres flashed by. He was cryin’—mad! He was gibberin’ to himself in Basque: ’I killed him! I killed him!’ He had the kid’s horse on a rope, but the saddle was empty.
    â€œâ€™He’s killed the kid,’ I told myself, and so I thought until the posse dug me out and told me that Kit Dorr had been murdered, and that they was after your paw.
    â€œSave for tellin’ Kincaid, I ain’t said nuthin’ ’till now. You can guess what happened, can’t you ?—two men was killed that night.”
    â€œDorr and Timoteo—”
    â€œAin’t a doubt of it. The boy went down to cut the wire. Kit got him. Andres came along later, stampedin’ your sheep. The kid must have crawled away and tipped him off, and Andres nailed Kit.”
    â€œA supposition-”
    â€œFacts is what I’m tellin’ you,” Peter exclaimed. “Kit was killed by a .30-30 bullet. Andres had the rifle.”
    â€œBut Timoteo—I remember it was said that he had gone to Spain.”
    Peter smiled weakly.
    â€œSo it was said,” he replied. “But he’s never come back. Timoteo went a lot further than Spain that night.”
    â€œBut his body-?”
    â€œNever been found—leastwise not that any one knows