Green River
by tallsunshine12
Chapter 1 Fossil Creek
As he watched the men approaching the canyon, Travers' muscles bunched under his shirt in anticipation. It could be the law. It could be the army. As it was, it turned out to be his own men. Heat shimmers defined their outlines.
Abel Turner, a tall shape in the saddle, a good hand with horses, especially stolen, a long man with an easy stride when off his horse. Jesse Byrne, Irish and usually frowning, red-headed and green-eyed, crook-backed from birth, but with a notable conscience not shared by the other men. And last, Texas Pete, of no other name, at least not currently, with a big square head and huge hands, the kind no one wanted around his throat.
Pete always rode hunched forward in the saddle, as if looking over the ground for red ants. His eye under the dirty slouch hat was black, nearly as jet black as his hair. Most said he had some Mojave Apache in him. Travers didn't doubt it, for he knew Pete could kill with scant or no compunction. His hands, his eyes were made for it.
As he waited by the corral, the corral full of stolen horses, Travers saw that another man rode with them, not as tall as Pete or as lean as Abel. A stranger. Every so often he pitched forward in the saddle, as if he was having trouble staying awake. Or maybe even conscious. Turner would throw out a hand to catch him and shove him back.
"That's all I need," Travers murmured to himself, gloomily. "Another army spy."
He already had two of them locked up—at least temporarily—in a cave not too far from the box canyon where he corralled his horses.
"Ho, there!" he called, raising a hand as his men stopped before him. "Who's this, Texas Pete?"
"Caught 'im at the creek," said the big man who had been called Texas Pete. "Had an altercation with 'im."
"Thought water was free," murmured the stranger, out of breath. He'd had the wind knocked out of him at Fossil Creek in his struggle to regain his freedom. "Didn't know it was a crime in these parts to water a horse!"
Tall, not unlike the unknown man in the saddle, Dale Travers walked up to the stranger's horse and took its cheek piece in hand.
"I'm Travers, Dale Travers," he introduced himself. "You're on my land. Who are you?"
Bret Maverick scowled down at him from the saddle. His face was bruised and he held his right arm across his middle. His Colt .44 revolver had been taken from him at the creek and now graced the belt of Texas Pete.
"Bret Maverick."
"Why didn't you ask to water your horse?"
"No one was about. Thirsty horse."
Travers reached up and dragged the stranger out of the saddle, thrusting him up against it. His latigo buckle digging into his spine, Maverick kept his hands raised. Hurt ribs and a swollen eye made him wary of getting into any more 'altercations.'
"Still ask," said Travers, his nose inches from the stranger's.
Then he laughed and turned him loose, slapping him on the back. Maverick lurched a few steps, blinking in surprise and worrying he'd be in for another beating, like the one at the creek when he argued with the cowboys about water's being free.
Travers reached out and Texas Pete handed him Maverick's Colt .44. "You're here, but this is a very unlucky time for you. You see—" He gestured up-canyon, at the horses.
"So, you're breaking horses. What about it?"
Travers laughed again. He had an easy laugh for a man afraid of both the army and the law. "Whose horses, though?"
"Why should I care?" stated Maverick, firmly, and he really didn't.
"You're not with the army?"
"In these clothes?"
Spare and lean from travel and a lack of steady meals, Bret knew that apart from his short boots, the rest of his things—jeans, shirt and vest—stained by heat and dust, hung on him loosely, and were nothing like a close-fitting trooper's uniform.
"A man can change his clothes. Jeans, just the trick-out for a spy."
Maverick ran a hand over his hot face and brushed it through his wet hair. "I'm no spy," he said simply, tiredly.
"Where's your hat?" asked Travers, again in a sudden way.
"Back a-ways. At the creek."
"Jesse, go and retrieve the man's hat. Can't let him die of the sun, can we now?"
Maverick scowled again, trying to figure things out. Rustling was going on here for sure. Horses—even wild ones might belong to somebody. Maybe cattle, too. He'd heard of these operations in the oak hills, many of them run by more or less honest ranchers for a little extra cash—or gold—in their pockets, and now he'd fallen into one. Swell.
Traveling from Yuma, Bret had worked out how to avoid everything on a mental list—Apaches, desert sun and sidewinders heading that list—but he hadn't factored in rustlers.
In a few days, he'd have joined up with his brother Bart, likewise a roving gambler, at Flagstaff. Bart had telegraphed him about some cattlemen who had money and were daring to use it as recklessly as possible. Now it appeared as if he might be late.
A cold feeling gripped him as, side by side with Travers, both men stood by the corral and Travers swung his arms about, asking him how he liked this fine sorrel, or the chestnut, or that handsome paint. Maverick nodded they were all fine. And they were, too. Great horses, some saddle-broken already, others in need of more working.
His own horse—Ollie—wandered off to nibble the earth some twelve, thirteen feet away, its reins dangling and its saddle cinch still tight. Though Bret didn't have his .44, his carbine was still in the boot. He could make a grab for the reins, throw himself in the saddle, and make off. He didn't allow himself second thoughts. He decided to try it.
Glancing at the cowboys in the corral, who were yelling and busting the half-wild horses, he made a dash for his own horse, catching Ollie's reins and throwing a leg over the saddle. Ducking low over the withers, he spun in a half-circle, facing the open end of the box canyon, and pelted ground. He surprised everybody, even Travers. In seconds, he had ten other guns, including Travers' own Colt .44, blazing at his back.
Not wanting to waste bullets on a fleeing prisoner, Travers jumped on his own mount. Kicking his horse into a brisk run, he speculated on the stranger. He could have been watering his horse, as he told Pete, but he still could have been a spy. Those other two—the army men—in the cave where Travers was holding them had said they weren't spies, too.
"Do what's necessary!" Travers yelled over at Texas Pete and Jesse Byrne, both men already ahead of a half-dozen others as they flew out of the canyon. "Don't let him escape!"
In a big hurry, barely touching ground, Ollie left only a tiny cloud of dust after each hoof. Maverick threw a glance back through sage and oak brush and juniper trees and saw blurs of mounted men, black shapes in the bright heat of midday.
What a race! Headed for Fossil Creek, which drained into the Verde River a few miles south of it, how far could he go before they caught up? Was Travers or his cowboys cold-blooded enough to kill? That question bothered Bret the most.
Shots interrupted his reverie. Rifle shots. He was by then too far out of range for a pistol. Yanking out his carbine, he turned in the saddle and fired. Firing backward on a speeding horse, threw all that brush, was nigh unto impossible, even if he had been a crack shot, yet he was doing it. He didn't hit anyone with those chance shots, but he did make them pull up for a second or two, giving him just enough time to peel out.
Up a limestone ridge Maverick spurred Ollie, the lathered horse struggling to make it to the top. Once there, the gambler headed out across the dry sage desert, Fossil Creek's cottonwoods still a few miles off. That was where he had met up with Travers' men. Going there would be like replaying a scene at a trial, only this time, he hoped, there'd be a different outcome. From there, he'd head downstream to where Fossil Creek joined the river.
Why he thought the Verde, or Green, River would protect him from the retribution of his pursuers, he couldn't guess. It seemed to be a safe bet, that's all, a sure bet for a gambling man. Make it to the river, the shiny river—and he could cross it and go free.
A rifle shot kicked up dirt beside Ollie's leg. Bret twisted his head around. Two men sat their horses on the same ridge where he had just been. One of them, who looked like Texas Pete, had fired. Ollie kept galloping. Three miles later, at the Verde, Maverick thought he might have lost them. He pulled up in some brush and let his horse blow.
He leaned over and patted one of Ollie's overworked shoulders, talking softly to him. Then he heard a scream. A man's scream, ear-splitting but deeper in pitch than a woman's. He looked around, scanning the brush for the movement of something as little as a twig. His eyes, cat-like, took in every nuance of the scene at the creek.
He heard the scream again, over there, beyond some willows. Dismounting, knowing he should just keep going before Texas Pete caught up, he crept through the scrub towards the sounds, carbine in hand. He heard moans now, frightened grunts.
Stopping in some brush, he could see two half-naked forms standing, gazing directly at him. They had stopped what they were doing—torturing a man to death—and straightened up to listen. One held the cowboy by the hair with a knife to his throat.
All three, Apaches and cowboy, had heard Maverick's horse crash through the undergrowth, but the two Mojaves hadn't left their prisoner to see who it was. They might think he was one of Travers' cowboys come to rescue one of their own. Expecting bolts of hot, white lead—a bullet apiece—they now stood stock-still.
Maverick raised his carbine and fired high, twice, then fired again at the retreating backs of the Apaches, deliberately missing both of them.
When they were well and truly gone, he stepped out of the brush and knelt beside the cowboy, who was bleeding from several gashes on his bare chest, one right above his heart. None of the cuts appeared too deep. None could have caused the boy's unbridled terror. Just being caught by what in his young and untried mind he thought of as 'savages' was enough to do that.
He had probably just saved the young rustler's life, Bret thought wryly, and in the bargain lost his own chance at freedom. Or of crossing the Verde which ran swift and green next to the willows.
He tried to staunch some of the blood flow from the boy's chest with his handkerchief, then a crashing sound hit the trees off to his left. A pistol made itself heard, snapping off a willow twig next to Maverick's right arm. He flinched. It was over. He'd run a good race, but he was now on foot. Even though he was armed, he wouldn't—couldn't—shoot and kill the cowboys, even to save his own skin. So, it was just over.
Maverick stood up again. Regarding the bloody man tied up on the ground, he hung his gun barrel low. He was grim, not the picture of the carefree young gambler just then. Maybe his poker-playing days were over for good.
"Drop it, now."
Texas Pete stood there, facing him, literally blood-in-the-eye cold, with pistol drawn. His jaw set, Bret let the carbine slip through his fingers. Jesse Byrne rode over and fetched Maverick's horse and held its reins.
"Move away from it," said Pete. "I don't want you near it."
Maverick looked up, squinting in the sun at the tall rider. "You don't have to kill me."
"Why not?" asked Pete, from behind his gun. "It's got five bullets left. You shouldn't 've run off like that."
"Who is he?" asked the tortured man, trying to rise off the ground. Jesse Byrnes passed Ollie's reins to Abel Turner, dismounted and went over to him, kneeling down and giving him a hand to sit up, untying him.
"Some kind of army spy," said Pete, "just like the other two last week who came here up to no good."
Maverick made a mental note of the 'other two' Texas Pete had mentioned.
"I'm not a spy," he said coolly. "I told you that earlier, back there at the creek."
"He saved my life, Pete," said the pale man on the ground, only eighteen or nineteen if a day, wincing as he tried to move again. His hand, clutching his chest, was bloody, but the Indian knife hadn't penetrated far, just scored the boy's chest. They had been toying with him.
"That's right, Pete. You can't kill him," said Jesse.
An Irish-born thief far from his green shores, Jesse Byrne had run to America with a price on his head in County Galway for stealing sheep. He'd done it, of course. Had to. Sisters hungry, ma sick.
If she got them, she and his sisters, his two or three letters this past year made up somewhat for his running off. He knew, whatever she was doing now, she could be at ease about him, her only boy-child—cow camps, and their songs, his guitar, three squares a day when not on roundup. And no price, as yet, on his head.
Texas Pete was bristling with a fierce kind of energy. "You want to let 'im go?"
Jesse, conflicted, looked down at his bloody friend, then up at Maverick, who was only an inch or two shorter than the tall Texas Pete. "I say we tie him up and take him back. That's all."
"Yeah," Abel Turner chimed in, still holding Ollie's reins. "I say we don't kill 'im. He hasn't done us any 'arm, Pete."
Pete lifted his pistol, pointed it, and Maverick braced himself, stiffening his spine.
"Don't do it," Jesse urged, getting up and moving over. He touched Pete's gun arm.
"Didn't Mr. Travers say, do what's necessary?" asked Pete.
"He'd be glad he saved Mitch. Could've died."
Mitch, leaning on his right side, wiped the sweat from his forehead and nodded, "Coulda," he echoed.
Pete lowered the pistol and raised it again towards Maverick, lining up the center of his eyes for a good, swift shot. "Travers said—" he began.
"I said do what's necessary. If that meant kill 'im to stop 'im, then so be it. But he's stopped," said Travers himself, riding up on his light bay horse. He was leading the others of his crew he had spared from horse-breaking. "Put the gun away, Pete. Unless he starts somethin'."
"I won't, Travers. Not for now," said Maverick. He breathed slightly out.
"Get on your horse. Some of you men get back to the corral, finish up there and picket those horses on some grass before bedding them down."
Maverick swung up into the saddle. "Where to now?" he asked, realizing he wasn't going back to the canyon.
Travers looked at him distantly. "My house."