War on the Cimarron Read Online Free PDF Page B

was lighted, and as it ate its way into the brush and lighted up the camp Frank and Shibe rode into view. The crew was wakening, and Otey Fleer came up out of his blankets.
    Frank pulled up and looked around him. The chuck wagon was laying on its side in the rim of the fire’s light. Cans of food, flour, grub of all sorts were scattered around in broken boxes. The rank clinging smell of burned wool troubled Frank until he noticed that most of his crew was sleeping on pulled grass and shared one blanket between two of them.
    His eyes finally settled on Otey. “What happened?”
    â€œJust a visit from your neighbors,” Otey said calmly. He was studying Red Shibe with a hard suspicion. “Who’s this?”
    â€œTell it, man!” Frank said impatiently. “Did the Circle R wreck the camp?”
    Otey’s suspicious gaze shuttled from Red back to Frank, and he nodded. “That’s about it. Ten-fifteen of them rode over this evenin’ after dark. They was lookin’ for you to make good on your brag, they said. They held guns on us and wrecked the wagon, smashed what they could, scattered the grab, burned our blankets and told us to get the hell off their range before they got mad at us.”
    Frank’s whole crew was watching him. Beach Freeman had been guarding camp, and because he was the youngest the concern in his face was the deepest. The bald cook, Joe Vandermeer, sucked at a piece of grass and watched Frank with cynical and disillusioned eyes. Mitch, Henry and Samse, middle aged and younger than Otey, studied Frank with veiled indifference. Their boss had been shamed, and now a strong crew had warned them off.
    Frank, looking at them, came to a sudden decision. He had been crowded as far as he was going to be, and he might just as well start making good his brag to Milabel right now. He dismounted and said curtly, “Samse, go round up the horses.” To Otey he said, “Did they get the case of shells?”
    â€œNo.”
    Frank looked at the crew. “I’m goin’ to move in that shack like I said I would, and there’s goin’ to be trouble. Any of you don’t like it, now’s the time to ride out.”
    There was a short silence, and then Beach Freeman said, “But we’re only six, Frank. Hell, they claim twenty-odd all told, I hear.”
    â€œNot six. We’ve got seven,” Frank said. He remembered then that he hadn’t introduced Red, and he did so. Nobody shook hands with him or paid any attention to him.
    In fact, nobody said anything at all. “Well, speak up,” Frank said shortly. “Beach, you want to quit?”
    â€œNot if the others don’t,” Beach said surlily. “I can take what the rest of you can.”
    â€œThen break out that case of shells,” Frank said. “We’re movin.’”
    An hour or so before daylight they pulled out of the camp, fording the stream and heading up the north slope, and the limping chuck wagon followed them with the salvaged grub and the few blankets. And long before false dawn touched the east Red Shibe had scattered them in the live-oak thicket that stretched down to almost touch Morg Wheelon’s shack. The chuck wagon was left back in the timber, and the cook was given a rifle. And then silence settled on the coming dawn and they waited.
    As it became lighter Frank surveyed the house from his position behind a tree midway between the house and the corrals. The chimney in the cookshack lean-to was already streaming smoke, and the lamp was lighted in the house. Presently, as daylight came, the lamp was doused and there was the sound of voices. Shortly afterward the first rider, after-breakfast cigarette in his mouth, drifted out to the corral. He saddled a horse and rode out into the horse pasture and drove in the remuda, and afterward the riders came out in twos and threes, heading for the corral and the day’s work.
    When the ninth