Читать книгу Mesquite Jenkins - Clarence E. Mulford - Страница 5
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The death of Tobe Ricketts and the manner of it made a stir in the little town of Desert Wells. The first seemed to be taken with a degree of complacency that strongly suggested satisfaction; the second had a disturbing effect, for the verdict of the coroner's jury automatically put every ill-wisher of Tobe Ricketts under suspicion; and the number of ill-wishers was greatly in the majority.
This was soon apparent to the stranger, who had broken off his journey and tarried in town. He mixed with the crowd in Parsons's Saloon, which was the chief gathering point, and bit by bit his store of knowledge grew.
He learned that Tobe, who had reached his threescore years and ten, had been autocratic, domineering, and that he had claimed full grazing privileges over the entire range by right of priority. The fact that three other ranches had acquired title to their own particular range made little difference to Tobe, and he drove his herds where it pleased him to graze them, and furiously denounced the men who turned them back again. It was this that became responsible for the disintegration of his outfit, for his best men, knowing that they were trespassing, resented the job, resented the trouble that ensued, and at last, one by one, refused to obey the ranchman. One by one, they quit or were discharged, and their places taken, perforce, by men of lesser moral strength. In time Tobe's outfit became a collection of the worst type of men riding range; and they, according to their natures, had small loyalty for their boss, and worked only because the pay was large and for other reasons known only to themselves.
Five years before Tobe's death a new cattle outfit had moved into the country and turned its forty head loose on range which, because of its wildness, no man claimed. This lay on the far side of the basin's slope, against the distant ridges to the northeast. It was very rough country, and it was now dominated by rough men. Their brand was the Clover Leaf, better known locally as the Ace of Clubs because of its almost exact similarity to the single club pip on a playing card. All was in order with this outfit and its brand, for the latter was recorded and was a legitimate mark of ownership.
The stranger took no part in the discussions that went on about him unless directly questioned. He had told his story a dozen times, in the bare essentials, and another dozen times he had nodded confirmation to it when it was told by someone else; but while his vocal cords were mostly idle, his auditory apparatus was otherwise.
"I don't feel sorry for Tobe a damn bit," said one red-faced cowman, whose liquor had loosened his tongue; "but I shore do feel right sorry for Jane. Th' Lazy S has had a lot of trouble th' last few years, an' shore has been goin' to th' dogs. Now it won't keep out of th' sheriff's hands for a great while. Why," he exclaimed, looking slowly around the circle, "do you fellers know th' figgers of th' last Lazy S sales?" Encouraged by the silence, he answered his own question. "Not one third what they was th' year before; an' th' year before they wasn't but half of th' year before that. Th' Lazy S shore is totterin'." He reached for his half-emptied glass, finished it, and wiped his lips. "Jane's headed for th' poorhouse, an' I'm right sorry for her; but Tobe got what he has been huntin' for, for near twenty years."
"How's th' Box O a-comin' along these days?" asked a man in a corner.
The first speaker, owner of the Box O, wiped his lips again as he peered at his questioner.
"Little mite better than last year," he said, with satisfaction. "We are growin', slow but steady."
"Ace of Clubs ship out many head this spring?" persisted the questioner, looking directly at another cowman, an unpleasant appearing person whose eyes were set too close together.
"We fell off quite some," came the instant answer, but the close-set eyes shifted to the stranger and away again.
"Wonder when the sheriff will get back?" mused a fourth in the circle. "I reckon he must 'a' struck straight for Franklin."
"You fellers all aimin' for to join in th' funeral to-morrow?" asked a fifth.
"I am!" came a snorted answer. "That's somethin' I been waitin' twenty years to do. I want to see Tobe underground an' covered up. He liked to ruin me, ten years back. I ain't no hypercrite: when a skunk dies that don't unmake my recollections of him. I hated Tobe when he was alive, an' I hate him now. I don't hold with murder, but now that he's dead, I'm right glad of it. Just th' same," he said, his voice losing its hard edge, "I feel like Zeke, here. Th' Box O had their troubles with th' Lazy S, didn't you, Zeke? Yes, you shore did; but it warn't Jane's fault. Reckon if it hadn't been for Jane old Tobe would 'a' been even worse. I feel right sorry for her, an' I'm announcin' myself as number one on th' list, if th' time comes, that is made up to keep her out of th' poorhouse."
"Right, Tom!" cried the owner of the Box O. "An' my name'll be right under yourn!" He looked around the circle and then caught the bartender's eye. "Set out another round, Parsons! This here round will be drunk to Jane Ricketts, widder of th' meanest man this country ever seen!"
"Which we drinks standin'," hiccoughed a tearful voice, whose owner's villainous face was smirking with hypocrisy.
The stranger's cold eyes settled on this last speaker, and after a moment's close scrutiny turned to the coroner, who sat at hand.
"Who's th' standin' drinker?" he quietly asked.
"Pecos Sam," answered the coroner.
"Who's he?" persisted the stranger, who evidently was particular about the answers to his questions.
"One of th' owners of th' Ace of Clubs."
"An' where's their headquarters?"
"On th' first bench under Flat Top Mountain, near where th' river cuts through th' ridge. They been doin' purty well, them fellers has. Only had forty head when they come in here, among th' four of 'em. Now they must have over two hundred."
"How long have they been here?" persisted the stranger, flashing another glance at Pecos Sam, who did not notice it.
"'Bout five years."
"Forty head of cattle keep four men busy an' pervide grub an' clothes for 'em while they growed into two hundred head?" persisted the stranger.
"Oh, no; oh, no," answered the coroner. "They hire out. Hardworkin' outfit, they are. But they're slowly gettin' their toe holds."
"Slowly?" inquired the stranger, his voice hard. "You reckon it's slow when forty head of cattle become two hundred in five years, not countin' them that was sold an' sent over th' trail?"
"They put all their spare money in cattle an' take cattle as wages, sometimes," explained the coroner. He grinned. "We don't have no one hundred per cent. nat'ral increase down here in this country."
"I come blamed near believin' that you did," retorted the stranger, and allowed a thin grin to slip across his face.
"... never come from Franklin," said a voice, breaking through the noise of the general conversation.
"Then you figger he circled?" questioned a companion.
"Shore I do; what else should I believe?" asked the first voice in deep scorn. "Tobe warn't killed by no hombre from Franklin, an' you can lay to that."
The stranger did not appear to have heard this bit of talk, but he had heard it, and it served to put some sort of endorsement on his own theory, a theory which as yet was very nebulous, very discrete, hardly more than a shadow of a theory; but what few things had tended toward concretion pointed toward that hypothesis: the murderer was not a man who lived in Franklin. The cold eyes skimmed the circle: the murderer might even be among those present in the room. Again the cold gaze rested on the Ace of Clubs man, the man who wanted to drink standing up.
As yet the stranger had no particular interest in this crime, being intrigued only by the mystery presented, the part he had taken after the commission of it, and his own peculiar attributes and training. His father, once held captive for years by the Mountain Utes, had been taught by those savages the finer points of trailing; practice not only had trained his father's senses but also had schooled his mind. He had been his father's closest companion, the relationship between the two was far stronger than the ordinary one of father and son; and he, in his turn, had been as avid for instruction, as keen in that Ute art as his father had been. He knew many things, even now, connected with the murder that the sheriff and the coroner and all the men roundabout would never have found out. For one thing, the sheriff and the coroner both had passed by that little tuft of horsehair hanging to a cactus leaf, and had been so eager to find signs that they had overlooked many of them.
The stranger's theory, which persisted in dominating his thought, was being added to, here and there, bit by bit; and it was an intriguing thing, this puzzle; but on the morrow it was to become even more so, to be bulwarked and supported by a keener interest, and one which eventually would hold him until the solving of itself and of other things. So it is that accidental things, outside one's own orbit, at last swing around, make a contact, and shape a man's destiny.
As the night grew older the crowd increased, and then slowly fell away until at last Parsons, the coroner, and the stranger were the only men in the room. Gradually their desultory conversation lapsed, and the proprietor arose to turn out the lights. The stranger and the coroner said their good-nights to him and passed out into the street, the door closing behind them.
The two men walked slowly toward the hotel, where the stranger had engaged accommodations.
"Ridin' on yore way again to-morrow?" asked the coroner, to make conversation.
"That wouldn't hardly be th' right thing to do, with th' sheriff absent," answered the stranger. "I aim to stay here till he says for me to move along again."
"Strikes me that is th' right thing to do, an' th' most sensible," replied the coroner thoughtfully. "Flight sometimes makes folks think wrong thoughts; an' there may be folks who would call it flight—'specially th' man who did it. Personally, I didn't have no likin' for Tobe; but shore as hell I want that murderer caught an' hung. I hate to meet his widder to-morrow. She's a frail, bent mite of a thing, ten years older than th' record might say, an' th' record might say she is about sixty. Tough job she's got on her hands. Reckon she better sell out for what she can get." He coughed and spat. "She'll lose everythin', if she don't."
"Is that just a guess, or do you know what yo're talkin' about?"
"I know what I'm talkin' about, but I can't prove nothin', not a damned thing," replied the coroner. "Goin' to be a nice day, to-morrow, for th' funeral, if th' wind don't blow, 'though it gen'erally does for funerals. You better ride on out with me."
"Yes, I will," responded the stranger. "You think th' sheriff went to Franklin?"
"Why, yes; where else would he go?"
"I don't know. I just asked because I was wonderin' when he'd get back to town."
"Oh, he'll get back in time for th' buryin'. Haskins likes Jane Ricketts right well."
"Well, Coroner, I'll say good-night."
"Good-night, stranger. I'll be around for you in plenty of time to-morrow."
"I'll be waitin'."
The stranger watched the official move off in the moonlight, and then slowly, reluctantly, turned and entered the hotel. He would attend the funeral on the morrow, although he disliked the task; but that was not all he would do. If the sheriff really went to Franklin to find the murderer, then that officer was a bigger fool than he gave any signs of being. Oh, well, a mind trained to trailing leaps farther than one which is not. To-morrow would be another day, and, he hoped, an important one.
