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  Clay grinned in reply. ‘And I thought you was long ago hung fer stealin’ sheep!’

  ‘I take it you boys know each other,’ Ben said dryly, gazing down the slopes at the tall, green grasses of the Rafter T. Far below, the hands were building a fence to keep cattle out of the ranch-house yard. The new buildings were up, and the roofs were on.

  ‘OK, give me the news, Bear.’

  ‘Dooley Clowers is gone. He showed up in Cook’s Crossin’ and called out that saloon keeper, Jacob Talley. Figgered on shootin’ him down in the street for jailin’ him that time he tried to hold up the saloon, or so he bragged. But old Talley come through them half-doors with a scatter gun and backed Dooley down. Dooley mounted up and we ain’t seen him since. Folks step pretty easy around old man Talley these days.

  ‘How’s Mattie?’

  ‘Oh well, Mattie’s fine, just fine. So’s the rest of the family.’

  ‘Family? What family?’

  ‘Why your family,’ Bear said innocently. ‘What family do ya suppose I mean?’

  ‘What are you blathering on about?’

  ‘You’re a father, that’s what!’

  ‘Holy smoke! I am? How’s Mattie? Boy or girl?’

  ‘Yup, she’s fine, just like I said, and boys.’

  ‘She’s fine? That’s great news! I’ve been some worried with me gone and all and . . . wait . . . what? What did you say? Boys? What do you mean, boys?’

  ‘Yessir,’ Bear said, enjoying every minute of it, ‘Yessir, I said boys. Two of ’em just alike and as ornery as any I’ve ever saw. Why they squalled all night long last night and we could hear ’em clear out in the bunkhouse. You’re in for some real ear music from them two!’

  Mattie laughed when she told Ben of Bear’s frantic ride to fetch Doc Ridgeway and her own shock of discovering she was carrying identical twin boys. She was supposed to have been bedridden for two weeks, but after one day, she got up and felt fine. That was over a week ago.

  ‘Who is who, Mattie?’ asked Ben, looking down at his sons. ‘What’re their names?’

  ‘That’s up to you, Ben. They’re your sons. You name them.’

  Ben stood up and looked over at Mattie. ‘How about we call the one with that little birthmark on his back, Joseph, and the other one, Jeremiah?’

  Mattie nodded.

  ‘Old Pete thinks he may have hit a very rich vein, Ben.’ Mattie placed a plate full of beef and potatoes in front of Ben. She sat in her rocker and began nursing Joseph. She looked up. ‘I think he’s a little worried that you may change your arrangement with him.’

  ‘A bargain is a bargain, Mattie. We agreed that we would go halves on anything he found prospecting around the ranch. I gave him my word, and in the west, a man’s word is worth more than any amount of gold. I’ll talk to him.’

  ‘I know that, Ben, and I already told Pete, but he’ll want to hear it from you.’

  ‘The food’s good, Mattie, which reminds me – I hired us a ranch cook. His name is Clay Johnson. I knew him up in Montana years back and he rode in with me. He’ll replace Digger Jones, who never much cottoned to the job anyway.’

  ‘He isn’t very good at it either,’ Mattie said drily. ‘Why not have your Mr Clay Johnson take over the cooking chore here in the main house and feed everyone here at our table? Digger’s been feeding the crew and I’ve been cooking here in the house.’

  ‘You sure?’

  ‘Yes. We’ve a large table and lots of chairs coming next week and the dining room is plenty big. Let the hands eat in here from now on.’ She lifted her eyes to him. ‘Treat them like family, Ben, and they’ll be loyal like family.’

  Pete Nagle’s find was a good one. He’d panned a small creek that wound its way along the eastern slope for some eight miles, and had suddenly found good color and then, just as abruptly, he had lost it. The gold was rough-textured and hadn’t been subjected to the polishing and rounding off that came from tumbling for miles in a rocky creek bed. He filled his pipe and found a good stump from which he studied the mountainside.

  Pete had stopped by the ranch-house last fall hoping for a feed and hadn’t been disappointed. After supper, the conversation turned to prospecting, old Pete’s favorite topic. Ben asked several questions and then, satisfied that Pete knew mining, made a proposal.

  ‘We’ve found some color along the eastern slope of the Rafter T and I’m guessing there’s more, possibly much more. I’ll go halves with you on any strike you find, and I’ll bring in the equipment and men as needed.’

  Pete glanced sharply at Ben.

  ‘You’ll go halves with me? I’ve never been offered no halves before. Best I ever got was thirds and I had to get it out myself.’

  ‘Gold’s worth nothing if it lies undiscovered in the ground, and right now Pete, I have one hundred percent of nothing. I’d rather have fifty percent of a fortune. I have a feeling that it’s there, but I don’t know where to look. You do. Do we have a deal?’

  In the west, bargains worth a fortune were often sealed with no more than a handshake, and Pete Nagle rode out the next morning with an extra packhorse and a month’s supply of grub and equipment. There would be a line rider along now and then to check on him and bring new supplies. He made permanent camp under some aspens and went to work.

  Patience is the name of the game in prospecting. Pete worked out the probable spots in the creek bed where gold would be likely to settle and began to test for color. Filling the pan with dirt, gravel, and water, he worked the gold to the bottom by keeping all the solids suspended in the water using a constant to-and-fro swirling motion. After a minute or two, the lighter materials worked their way to the top and he carefully washed that layer out of the pan by a back and forth movement under the water. Then he resumed the to-and-fro swirling action to further settle the gold and raise the lighter stuff. After a few cycles of this, he was down to the remaining heavy, black sands and hopefully, the gold.

  It was during one of these tests that Pete suddenly had a pan with almost an ounce of coarse, yellow flakes and small nuggets. As he worked his way upstream, each succeeding pan netted new color and one had almost two ounces, an incredibly rich find. Then, just as suddenly as it began, the gold petered out. Several more test pans yielded only an occasional small flake or two.

  Seated on the stump, Pete spotted several outcroppings that might have been the source of the jagged gold, but he was not convinced. One by one, he inspected and discarded them until all had been eliminated. Puzzled, he began walking the slope on a diagonal, back and forth for over a mile wide looking for any sign of the source and found nothing. For three weeks he traversed the slopes, steadily to and fro looking for anything, any clue. Nothing.He knew two things. The source was not far away, and it had only fairly recently begun to find its way to the stream. If it had been eroding for centuries, the gold would have worked its way far down the stream bed and closer to the bedrock. Instead, it had mostly been found quite near the surface and had traveled only a short distance downstream.

  Pete moved his camp to save walking time, and built a lean-to against a fallen, giant fir, long ago downed by lightning, and about a third of the way up the slope. It offered a good view of the valley and of the creek below, and boughs woven in the branches offered shelter for his mule and packhorse from the spring rains.

  It was the morning after one of those rains when he walked to where the downed fir’s giant roots stood upturned and stark against the sky. As he yawned, he gazed down into the deep hole, where a yellow gleam, wet from the rains caught his eye. With a growing excitement, he scrambled down and picked the object up. Wiping the mud off with his shirtsleeve, he stared at a rough, jagged, and stunningly beautiful piece of gold that must have weighed six ounces or better. The ground beneath the roots was littered with dark, rotten quartz. He examined the roots themselves and found several more pieces of gold among the rocks and dirt, still imbedded in the tangle. He had found the source.

  When Ben rode up, the mine
was already nearly fifteen feet in, twenty feet wide and growing. The outer limits of the vein were not yet established, and it had already proved to be fabulously rich. Pete gave orders on some shoring placement and walked out to greet Ben.

  ‘I hear you’ve made quite a strike, and I also hear that you think I may not be a man of my word.’

  Pete’s neck and ears grew bright red and he studied his boots for a moment before answering.

  ‘Aw, it ain’t that so much, boss. It’s just that I’ve seen brothers kill each other over less than this. I ain’t doubting you, but men do change their minds when there’s riches like this involved. I’ve seen it and I guess I was a little worried.’

  Ben decided to let him off the hook. ‘I know it, Pete. Men have been killed over five dollars in a poker game and after all, you don’t really know me, so I’ll take no offense. The deal stands. I now have half a bonanza. I’d call that a pretty fair deal for any man.’

  The two men discussed the need for more shoring timbers, blasting powder, food and shelter, and a stamp mill. When the talk got around to hiring some guards, Pete indicated a small hill to the west and about two miles off. ‘Someone’s been watching us. I’d seen the sun flashing off a spyglass of a morning when the sun’s right, so I had a rider mosey off to the north and sorta circle around to the far side of that there hill. He found the tracks of one horse and where a man’s boot heels had dug in behind a deadfall and plenty of them Mexican-style cigarette stubs laying around. From his position, he had a good view of the mine workings. On the far side of the hill, he had him a camp hid in some rocks where the fire could not be seen. From the sign, he had been there most of a week. Maybe the rider spooked him off.’

  Ben found the tracks himself and trailed them until they were covered by more recent cattle tracks, which then led into the soft sands of the river. He cast back and forth for over two hours but was unable to find where the rider had gone. He catalogued and saved the track to memory as was the way of cattlemen. If he saw it again, he would instantly recognize it.

  It was late afternoon when he topped the hill south of the Rafter T and looked down on his home. The long, low main house with its covered porch and huge, shady, cottonwoods was flanked on the south by the big barn. In the barnyard, he could make out a dozen or so of Mattie’s chickens, idly scratching in the dust for food and grit. To the west, the bunkhouse and stables were also nestled among giant cottonwoods. Farther north was the original cabin, now used as a storehouse.

  To the west, the valley and slopes were dotted with cattle. In the spring, he would round up some of the older stuff and begin a drive east to the rail yards and cattle buyers. The timber-cutting on the west slopes was ongoing but the careful selection had left the hillside mostly intact. He had seen what happens when hills are stripped of trees, and wanted no part of it. One town had been buried under a mudslide after the hills above it were laid bare, cutting ties and bridge timbers for the railroad.

  Standing in his stirrups, Ben looked all the way around. As far as he could see, everything belonged to the Rafter T, nearly three hundred square miles and close to two hundred thousand acres, and if all went as planned, it would soon more than double that. It was a big land and he had big plans for it. And it would take a big man to hold it.

  CHAPTER 7

  It was hot and dusty work. Ben gave his mount a breather on a low rise and watched as two of the hands hazed steers out of the lower breaks. To his right and below, were the branding fires with a steady stream of roped and bawling calves calling to nervous mothers. The air was filled with the stench of burning hair mingled with wood smoke as the red-hot Rafter T irons did their work. One by one the calves were branded and released to scamper back to their waiting mothers, wide-eyed and frightened but none the worse for their brief ordeal. Within minutes, all was forgotten, and they returned to peaceful grazing.

  The spring roundup was nearly complete and there was a sizable herd of prime beef ready to be driven east to the rail yards. With ample young stuff and good breeding stock, the ranch herd had grown to one of the largest in the country and it was time to market the older stock.

  Half a mile to the south, Bear suddenly pulled up and studied the ground intently for a moment and then looked off to the south and the riverbank. He turned in the saddle, waved his hat at Ben, and headed off. Ben kneed his own mount and turned to follow, wondering what Bear had spotted. In less than two hundred yards, he cut a strange trail and after no more than a glance, he understood Bear’s intent. Two more hands had cut the trail and the party grew to four by the time they rounded a bend in the river and rode into the stranger’s campsite.

  ‘Light and set, gents. Coffee’s hot.’ Seated by the fire under a huge cottonwood was one of the largest men Ben had ever seen. His massive arms and chest stretched the denim shirt tautly over rippling muscles. His huge, blond head was set on a thick neck above an open collar bristling with curly, red, chest hair. He got to his feet with a grace rare for a man his size and stood inches over Ben’s own impressive height and outweighed him by thirty pounds, all of it hard muscle.

  ‘Just rode in from Texas. Been near four months on the trail.’ The big man grinned at the unsmiling group studying him from horseback.

  ‘You’re a liar,’ said Ben.

  The grin remained, but the eyes hardened. ‘Now that ain’t a real friendly way to say howdy to a stranger, mister.’

  ‘It wasn’t meant friendly. Like I said, you’re a liar.’

  The rifle held in the crook of Bear’s arms was now pointed casually in the big stranger’s general direction, a fact that everyone noticed, including the stranger.

  ‘Drop that gun-belt, and be right careful about it,’ Ben ordered.

  Slowly the man complied, the grin fading to a frown.

  ‘Is this the way you treat newcomers in this territory?’

  ‘You’re no newcomer. You’ve been watching my mine diggings for months. All of us have seen the tracks of that horse of yours many times, and the boot prints around your fire there are almost as familiar as my own. And I see you’re still smoking those Mexican-style cigarettes. No, sir, you’re not new here at all.’

  ‘You talk real tough when you have a man disarmed and outnumbered.’ The big man glanced around and spat in Ben’s direction.

  Ben unbuckled his gun-belt and handed it to Bear. ‘Hold this.’

  Startled, Bear threw a hard glance at Ben. ‘What the hell are you doin’?’

  The big man watched in astonishment as Ben swung down, the disbelief on his face soon replaced by the return of the grin. ‘You’d fight me?’

  ‘No, I’m not going to fight you. I’m going to whip you good. There won’t be any fight to it. What’s your name anyway?’

  ‘It’s Cab Renfro, a name you’ll not soon forget!’ Renfro spat into each big fist and wiped them on his jeans. He watched Ben and waited, fists moving slightly in anticipation.

  As a young tough in Boston, Ben had once jostled a smaller, young man of obvious means who was well-dressed and looked to be quite the dandy. The stranger had apologized, and Ben took it as a sign of fear, so he decided to rawhide him. One thing led to another and Ben took a swing. The jaw he was aiming at was suddenly somewhere else and the little dandy caught him with two vicious left jabs followed by a straight right that jarred Ben all the way to his heels. That went on until the untouched stranger asked a bleeding Ben if he’d had enough. Ben thought about it for a moment, realized he’d been thoroughly whipped and offered his hand with a grin.

  As so often happens with men, the one-time foes quickly became good friends and the dandy turned out to be none other than Ian Dawson, a lightweight prizefighter from Scotland, and in Boston for several lucrative matches. He took Ben on as a sparring partner and taught him the science of boxing.

  After a few months, Ben’s superior size, reach, and strength, coupled with his new skills and natural talent made him more than a match for Ian, so he proposed that Ben try his hand in the
ring in his proper weight class. He lost his first bout but won all the rest. He was well on his way to a career in boxing when he killed gangster Jack Stanton’s son with his own knife and left Boston in a hurry.

  Ben walked up to Renfro and slapped him hard across his grinning mouth with the back of his left hand, instantly bloodying both lips. Shocked and then enraged, Renfro charged, throwing a great looping overhand right at Ben’s head. Ben stepped to his own right, nonchalantly slapped away the blow with his left and hit Renfro square on the jaw with a straight right. Renfro’s eyes glazed over for a moment, but he shook his big head and charged again, both arms grabbing at Ben for a bear hug. Ben grabbed Renfro’s right and spun into a rolling hip lock, flipping the big man to the ground in a hard fall.

  Renfro got up slowly, his hair matted with dust and dirt, eyeing Ben warily. With a roar, he charged Ben for the third time, arms flailing wildly. He was big and strong, but he was no fighter. He had won all his previous brawls because none of his opponents were anything more than untrained street thugs themselves. This was the first time he had ever been hurt and it began to dawn on him that this smaller man was giving him the whipping that was promised. With no plan other than to grab and crush his tormentor, he closed the gap.

  Ben watched the big man come and calmly set himself. He stepped inside the flailing arms and threw a devastating right uppercut with all his weight behind it, straight to the point of Renfro’s chin.

  The watching riders swore later that Renfro went all the way up on his toes and then clear off the ground from the force of the savage blow. Ben stepped out of the way as the momentum of the charge propelled a now unconscious Renfro into the fire, scattering coals and coffee everywhere as he plowed the ground. Bear rode up and quickly dabbed a loop over his boots, pulling him out of the smoke and flames.