Читать книгу Saddle and Ride: Western Classics - Boxed Set - Ernest Haycox - Страница 24

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A month passed, the year turned its apex and swung down the farther side of its arc. The broiling heat of a forenoon's sun blasted the land; all things withered beneath it, all things were turned to a dun and henna colouring. The hardy pines were coated with a dust that hid their natural greenery, and they appeared to suffer a suspension of life. Fog stretched across the horizon, the surface of the river was like glowing brass. Tom Gillette, from his vantage point a half mile removed, saw the new Circle G cabins shimmering and rising with the heat mirage. He turned to Lispenard.

"Nevertheless, Blondy, it's a fertile land, and we've got our footing. Let winter come. Let anything come. We can fight."

Lispenard shrugged his shoulders. He was clean shaven once more, and he had let his yellow hair grow until it fell below his hat brim, plainsman's style. "Winter? It's a devil of a time to be thinking of winter, my lad. And why should you be so cursed proud of a few clap-daubed huts?"

"It means..." began Tom, and then caught the words before they ran past his lips. After all, Lispenard wouldn't understand how much those few cabins and corrals meant in a raw country. Achievement—security—the onward march of a dream. So he murmured, "It means shelter," and let it go at that. He wondered of late why it was the man seemed to arouse in him a defensive mood. It appeared that his friend had shaken himself into a certain state of mind, a kind of taciturn aloofness and a veiled antagonism that couldn't be penetrated. The old smile and jest had returned to the Blond Giant, but there was no charity in either. He had quite distinctly hardened; and he had grown secretive.

Tom turned about. "I'm going to town. Coming along?"

"No. I want to explore the north side of the river," said Lispenard. And he grinned. "But give my regards to the prairie beauty, old man. Ah, touched! Of course I know you'll see her along the way. I could even tell you where she makes her stand. Don't you suppose I have ridden over there myself on occasion? She's a spitfire—but the time will come when she'll see me in a better light."

Tom returned the man's smile with a sharp glance, wondering at the flare of anger he felt. "Still the lady's man, Blondy?"

"It's a weakness," replied his companion. "Give her my regards and say to her that there are other desirable types of men in addition to the rockbound and frowning creature tramping across the footlights."

"What's the nubbin to that, Blondy?"

The Blond Giant raised his shoulders again and spurred off. Much later, when Tom had gone eastward, he swung to see the man outlined on the bluff north of the river a moment, then dip from view.

"What draws him over there so much?" The question stuck to his mind for several miles and then vanished before a kind of expectancy. Halfway to the Wyatt range he saw Lorena—Lorena loosely poised on her horse and watching him approach. Her hand swung upward, and of a sudden her pony sprang to life and raced across the prairie, the girl's compact body weaving from side to side. Without ceremony she wheeled alongside—and thus they rode for a good half mile, saying not a word. Neither of these people made conversation to order, neither of them seemed to feel the necessity of it. Presently she waved her arm around the compass points.

"Guess my dad's fixing to sell out."

"To Grist and the P.R.N.?"

"How did you know?" she demanded.

"He's been after me," replied Tom. "Seems to want this country pretty bad."

"Then that's why both Eapley and Diggerts have sold. And I guess we will too." She struck her gauntlet against the saddle, crying, "I don't want to leave—I don't want to!" With that same disconcerting swiftness she faced him. "Are you going to sell?"

Gillette shook his head. "No, I guess not. Where would I go? This is my land now. I'm stickin' to it."

"It's the way I feel," she explained wistfully. "But Grist offered Dad a lot of money—and where does he think to make a profit?—so I think Dad will take it. No idea just where we will go next. I don't want to leave."

"Corporation money," said Tom, "is cautious money. It may seem as if they are paying a fancy price, but don't you doubt they'll get it back twice over."

They came to the lower ford, across which lay the road to Nelson. The girl studied the sandy earth for a long interval, then swept Tom's face with a quick and shrewd glance. "I don't want to go. I won't. If Dad leaves here I'll go to Nelson and work in the restaurant."

"I'd hate to think of you doing that," protested Tom.

There was another short silence, in which Tom silently applauded. The girl in the East would have made a marvelous play of his sentiment. She would have coquetted with him, would have softly asked, "Would it make any difference to you, Tom, what I did?" But not Lorena Wyatt. This clear-featured girl—whose eyes now and then so arrested and troubled him—had nothing of the coquette about her.

She spread her hands apart; the white V of her throat slid beneath the bandana's knot. "I'm strong. I'm not afraid. What harm would there be? Oh, I know what you think. You've got all those queer ideas as to what a lady shouldn't do. But, you see, I'm not..."

"Don't say it, Lorena." He wasn't aware that he had used her given name for the first time; and perhaps that explained why he was so puzzled to find the quick glow in her black eyes. It bothered him so much that he turned into the ford, calling over his shoulder. "Blondy sent his regards."

He heard a sound of impatience. "How very kind of him. But you can tell the gentleman I don't need his company."

Tom's horse took the water, veering aside. And it was then the quiet of the land was broken by the crack of a rifle, and a jet of sand shot lip on the bank, just behind horse and rider. The girl cried an abrupt warning. "Behind the bluffs rim. Above you—see the smoke? Come back!" Even before he drew his own gun she fired at the thin trail of powder smoke eddying from the summit of the bluff. A second shot ripped the water. Tom bent over and put the shelter of the pony between himself and the unseen marksman. The powder smoke was a poor mark, but he threw two bullets up that way and raced through the deep part of the ford to the farther bank. He was now in a bad trap, for the trail led sharply up between a cleft in the bluff, and he was exposed to whoever lay along that rim and watched him. Still, he galloped on, hearing the girl crying at him from behind, hearing her horse splash through the ford. He twisted in the saddle, half angry. "Don't follow me! Get to shelter!"

His pony took the steep grade at great irregular jumps and came out on high ground several hundred yards from the edge of the cliff. He stopped, seeing nothing. The land on this side of the river was tortured with pockets and folds of earth—excellent concealment for the ambusher. Moreover, this rugged terrain led away to the right into a series of ridges. Possibly by now the man was retreating. Tom slid from his horse and spent some time inspecting the ground. The sing of those bullets had come from the barrel of a rifle; here he stood, a blessed fine target. So he dropped to a knee as the girl raced out of the mouth of the cleft and flung herself down beside him. "Oh, that was foolish!" she lectured him. "He could have killed you out there in the river! I saw his hat rising up. Made him duck, too! Where are you going?"

"Think he's pulled back for shelter. I'm going over to find out."

She protested so sharply that he delayed the move. "Supposing he's still lying in those pockets? He'll kill you the first shot. Let me ride around to that ridge on the right and scout from the high ground while you close in. I can keep him entertained if he's still opposite us."

"No. My Lord, Lorena, this isn't your fight. What made you cross the river?"

"Oh, nonsense, this is a free country, isn't it? You talk like all the other men! I can take care of myself."

"It's not your quarrel," he repeated, irritable. "Now lie flat while I inch along."

"If you are going to be that foolish, then I'll circle toward the ridge."

"You'll do nothing of the kind," was his flat answer.

"I will so!"

That stopped him. Turning on his side he looked back to where she lay; her eyes were snapping and a rose colour filled her cheeks. He had never seen her so aroused—or so striking. And presently he crept back, reaching for a cigarette and broadly smiling.

That definitely took the edge from her temper. "Well," she demanded in a fainter voice, "what are you laughing at? It's a Chessy cat laugh."

"You'd think we'd been married ten years the way we scrap. Lorena, don't you reckon I can take care of my own skin?"

"You'd been shot down in the river if I hadn't made him duck," said she.

"I'm thanking you for it now."

He said it so gravely and so humbly that her resentment instantly evaporated. "Well, it was a rash thing to do—but I liked it. Tom, I'll apologize."

"For what?"

"When I saw you first I thought you didn't have too much sand. It's been bothering me—up till now." She hesitated. "Seemed to me you rode around sort of doubting yourself. I hated to see it—truly I did."

That sharp and certain penetration. He flipped the cigarette through the air, considerably disturbed. "All right, Lorena. Now, I've got to pay that gentleman a social visit. You can't cross the river again until I clear the landscape a little. Do you think I want to pack a dead girl back to the Diamond W?"

She avoided his face, writing lines in the sandy ground. When she lifted her eyes it was with so troubled an expression in them that his amusement vanished. Her sturdy little shoulders rose, and her arm rested a moment on his wrist. "All right, Tom. I'll be good. But you watch carefully."

"Sure—sure."

He crawled across the rolling earth, scanning the rim of the hillocks for the mark of a hat brim or the gleam of a gun barrel. Nothing disturbed the profound stillness of the hot day; when he arrived at the first depression he slid into it for a brief moment and studied the flanking angles. The girl was prone on the ground, between the two horses, her chin cupped in her palms. But he noted that her revolver rested directly in front of her and even at the distance he clearly saw the pinched intentness of her oval face. Crawling up and down the contour he at last slid from her view, and at once commanded the whole sweep of ground as it marched to the bluffs edge. Nobody there. He relaxed his vigilance and circled the area until he found the gouged spots along the soil where the ambusher's boot heels left their prints; the fellow had swung from one point to another in his effort to get a fair shot, and then had fled toward the protecting ridges on the right. The deep set of the toe and the faint mark of the heel indicated the hurry he had been in. Probably he'd left a horse beyond that ridge and now was riding for distant shelter. Gillette thought about pursuing, but decided against it. That rough country was an effective cloak for the ambusher; the sun stood well up in the sky, and he had a long trip to town and back. No time right now for going on a hunt that might take him several days. He rose and waved his arm at Lorena. She jumped into the saddle and galloped toward him.

"He's skipped over there, then," said she, indicating the ridges. "Going to follow?"

He shook his head. "No time now. More important business on tap."

"Do you have an idea who it is?"

"Somebody trying to smoke me out, I reckon."

"San Saba?"

He thought not. "San Saba wouldn't stick to this country with a price on his head."

"Don't be too sure," she warned him. "That man is thoroughly bad. Snaky."

He grinned. "I'll wait right here till you cross the river. Friends again, ain't we?" And he extended his arm.

She took it, her hand slipping into his greater one and resting there a fleeting instant without pressure. The touch of it disturbed him, and he must have displayed it, for she drew away and turned to her horse. Five minutes later she rested on the opposite bank of the ford, her arm raised to him in salute; then the pony fled over the prairie, and Gillette walked to his own animal.

As for her, all the pent emotions of womanhood broke down the barriers she had so carefully preserved and gathered into one passionate cry. "Oh, if it were only so—if it only were! But it isn't! He doesn't see me that way! And I won't trick him! I hate that! He's got to see it with his own eyes—and he never will! Some dam' woman back East hurt him! I'd like to see her for a minute!"

She raced madly over the swelling earth, her teeth sunk into the nether lip.

After the girl had gone, Gillette swung away from the Nelson road and took the high ground along the ridge. He saw nothing to westward indicating the path of the ambusher. But, within five miles of town he found the dust rising off the main trail to the east and made out three horsemen and a buckboard travelling toward the ford. In town he went directly to the post office for his mail and then to the surveyor's. But before he reached that purveyor of gossip he came face to face with Barron Grist, the P.R.N. agent, and immediately that gentleman drew him aside.

"My proposition," Grist reminded him, "still holds."

"So does my answer," said Gillette. "I like Dakota."

"Man—there's plenty of Dakota left you. I'm offering a top price."

The foreman was so pleasant, so friendly that Tom betrayed himself more than he otherwise would have done. "The price isn't a consideration," he explained. "Grist—there's a Gillette buried on my range. Do you see?"

Grist nodded, thoughtfully impressed. "I admire you for it. Really I do. But here—my company wants that strip of ground. Damnably bad. I'll not mince with you. They want it. Here I stand with an offer. I'll raise the ante a clear three thousand, pay you for the beef on your own count—on your own count, mind—and give you your own estimate on the improvements. You stand to gain from every angle. You're free to prospect Dakota to the four walls. Anyhow, you've got a poor piece of range. The poorest on the south side of the river. I'm only buying you out of a bad bargain."

"Then why should the P.R.N. want it so badly?" questioned Gillette.

Grist smiled—an unimpressive, unrevealing smile. "Say, you can search me. I don't know. I only work for 'em. But they want it."

"Well, just you write and tell the gentleman back East I'm not selling."

"Persuasion and money won't do it, eh?"

Gillette marked the added sharpness. "It won't," he agreed.

"Listen to me," broke in Grist "I've got all the other five sewed up. Taking 'em over right down to the last can of beans. Eapley and Diggerts already gone. Rest going. Your nearest neighbour, Wyatt, will be gone before fall roundup."

"It will leave me the less crowded."

"There's where you are mistaken," said Grist emphatically. "I'm going to throw cows across the stream until the grass roots groan. You understand what that means?"

"I presume you're hinting that you'll overcrowd the range. All right, my boy. But remember, when it comes to starving out beef you'll lose more cows than I—because you've got more to lose."

"And can afford to lose 'em more than you," countered Grist. He had ceased to smile. "Maybe I'll lose ten to your one. All right. When you're out three thousand head you're ruined."

"Now you're talking war," said Gillette, taking a grip on his temper. "Talking war to a Texan. I'll call it. Don't ever think I won't."

"Up to your limit," agreed Grist. "Then you're wiped out. Listen, I like you and I hate to see you buck a corporation. Better take your profit. It's a big one."

"I reckon not."

"Why, damnation, but you're stubborn," muttered Grist, half in anger, half in surprise.

"Do you mean to make it war?" asked Gillette soberly.

Grist studied his man a long while. "It's got to be done," he finally replied. "I'll obey orders. Else I lose my job. There's the cards on the table. Yes, by George, it'll be war. You're foolish. Why force me?"

"I won't. I'll let you fire the first shot. And then, God pity you, Grist. You never have seen Texans fight. It's not a pleasant experience."

"I can muster a hundred men," snapped Grist, face muscles drawing tight.

"Eighty-five more than I've got. I'm repeating—you don't know a Texas crew. I'm sorry for you and your job."

"You needn't be." Grist stood a moment, an uncolourful figure who even at a moment like this could not achieve dignity. "Let it be so," he murmured, and walked away.

Tom watched the resident agent vanish into a saloon. Forgetting about the surveyor, he bought a sack of stuff at the store and started home, following the trail of the buckboard and the horsemen to the ford. Here, he skirted the high ground before going into the water. Once across it the buckboard tracks still kept ahead of him. And when he reached the yard of the Circle G houses he knew he had visitors.

Quagmire rose up from a corral and ambled toward him. Almost furtively he motioned toward the main cabin. "She's in there."

"Who?"

Quagmire stared dreamily at the sky. "Well, if it ain't an angel then my ideas o' heaven sure are scandalous wrong."

Tom ducked through the door, almost at the same time muttering. "Christine—Kit—my Lord!"

She was seated in a chair with her hands folded sedately in her lap and the shadows of the room adding to the soft allure of her face. As always, she seemed to have taken possession of her surroundings, to have put herself at ease. She smiled—that provocative, enigmatic smile that had haunted him for so many, many months on the trail, and her cool, half-humorous words, so gentle and yet so certain, reminded him that he was now what he had always been, an unsuccessful suitor ill at ease in the presence of a reigning beauty.

"Well, Tommy, here I am. And you shall pay for neglecting me so cruelly. No letters, no word. Oh, well, I have swallowed my pride..." A graceful gesture of a hand finished the sentence. How subtly she conveyed meaning with those small movements, how many shades of expression she could weave into the dullest word. He went forward, took the slim hand that stretched up to him. There was the slightest pressure in it; it drew him down. "Tommy, you are the same Western barbarian. But I like you in this setting. Indeed!"

Lispenard, upon fording the river, travelled in a direct line toward the most rugged piece of land within five miles as if making for a place well known to him. But once lost in the weblike tangle of pockets and ridges, he proceeded with an unusual amount of caution; and when the echo of a shot floated faintly over his shoulder from the rear he instinctively ducked. Then he turned about, reached a commanding summit, and dismounted. Flat on the ground he shaded his eyes against the earth's glare and waited.

He had not long to wait. Presently he made out a figure spurring toward him, travelling as fast as horse-flesh would allow. From time to time the man fell below a ridge and momentarily was out of sight, each time reappearing at a different corner of the compass. Only a man in flight, or a man extraordinarily cagey would act like that. The Blond Giant traced him for a good twenty minutes, or until the tall and lank body had come within hailing distance. And then, though not without a certain reluctance of movement and a reassuring pat on the butt of his gun, he crawled to his knees.

If the meeting was to take place it must be before San Saba got within good revolver range. Up stood Lispenard, one arm hailing the renegade ex-foreman.

San Saba's horse sat abruptly on its haunches. San Saba's thin, dust-powdered face screwed into a series of ragged lines. He made no particular move toward his gun, but his voice, sharp as the edge of a skinning knife, slit across the interval. "Well?"

"Oh, drop that," muttered Lispenard. "Don't you know a friend when you see one?"

The ex-foreman thought on this for a spell, his free arm akimbo. Lispenard had never before realized just how searching and cruel one man's glance could be. It touched his nerves.

"How'd yo' know I'd be here?" demanded San Saba.

Lispenard grinned, though his lips were dry and slightly trembling. "Trailed you for a week. Didn't catch wind of me? Well, then, I guess I'm not so poor at this sort of thing. Come on, be neighbourly. I'm not out for your hide. You haven't taken any of my toys."

For all his treachery, San Saba had grit in his make-up, or perhaps he read Lispenard well enough to understand. At any rate, he walked his horse to the top of the ridge and a little down the farther side before dismounting. Even then he was careless of the other's presence, his first attention being spent on the skyline eastward. His hard face relaxed, he squatted and rolled a brown- paper cigarette, meanwhile studying this unexpected visitor.

"Well?"

"Well," mimicked Lispenard. "Hell, San Saba, but you're a hard fellow to locate. Anyhow, you didn't catch on I was ramblin' across your trail."

"Don't fool yo'self," murmured San Saba.

Lispenard's satisfaction was destroyed. It made him irritable, a little sullen. "That being so, why didn't you meet up with me?"

"Wanted to see what yo' game was."

"Dam' queer you couldn't trust me," grumbled Lispenard.

"Do—so long as yo' near at hand. Remember what I once said in Ogallala?"

"Something—but I was too blessed drunk to catch it. Explain."

San Saba was not rash with his words. It took time to reach down and bring out the phrase that at once illumined his own character and his opinion of the other man's. "Said we was both rascals an' that it paid rascals to stick together."

Lispenard grinned. "Admirable powers of perception—and deception."

"Both good items to have," was San Saba's laconic answer. "How'd yo' know I was still in the country?"

It was Lispenard's turn to be shrewd. "There's something sticking in your craw, my boy. And I thought you'd hang around till you swallowed it."

San Saba's little red eyes were partially curtained behind a screen of cigarette smoke, but the Blond Giant was startled to see a film of colour moving across those pupils. The cigarette suffered destruction; the foreman sighed. "Yo' not such a poor hand, yo'self, friend. We wouldn't make a bad pair."

"I've thought about that. This sedentary life palls on me. Not to mention the puritanical atmosphere surrounding the Circle G. I had enough of that sort of thing back East. Don't appreciate it out here. My forte is something different."

"Big words," mused San Saba.

"When are you pulling freight?"

"Direct questions ain't stylish," was the man's dry rejoinder.

"Oh, come out of it!" grumbled Lispenard. "If I'm going to trail with you..."

He felt again the weight of that hard, unfriendly glance. The light of day was directly in San Saba's eyes, yet it was queer how little of that light reflected back from the ex-foreman's face. Something cold and deadly lay coiled behind the brittle, impassive features; Lispenard had a sudden doubt. The foreman looked at the Eastern horizon once more; he seemed to be calculating, his nutlike head bent forward. He rose.

"I'll wait here fo' yo', friend. When yo' come we'll go. They's still a bone to pick, understan'? But it can wait. Ain't no hurry. It's a long life."

"Bully. United we stand—divided we doubt. You'll be wanting grub, old-timer. Hiding in the hills on an empty belly is a cursed poor vacation."

San Saba permitted the wisp of a smile to pass his colourless lips. "Yo' learn fast, friend. I give yo' credit Where'll yo' get it?"

"I'll drop into Nelson in the morning and load up. See you here to-morrow at dark. Providing you're not afraid of my bringing the posse."

San Saba rose. "It's a bet. As to the posse..." He raised and lowered his thin shoulders, and Lispenard had an uncomfortable sensation of fitting too snugly with the man's purposes. There was now and then the hint of death about this character. It popped out, unsuspected, in those catlike gestures, in the occasional sidewise flashes of eye. He dismissed the thought. He outweighed San Saba a full fifty pounds; he had learned something of the rough and tumble himself. Let San Saba walk the narrow path with him. He, too, had his plans. San Saba spoke again. "Then we pull freight, eh, friend?"

"Not to-morrow. Give me a couple more days."

"She's a pretty wench," ventured the ex-foreman.

"Damn your sly tongue, she is," grunted Lispenard. He extended his arm. "Bargain signed, sealed, and notaried." San Saba's hand was clammy, there was no pressure to the grip. Lispenard felt the reservations in that bargain, but he dismissed his fears, got to his horse, and rode off, flinging back a casual arm. Beyond sight of the renegade he wiped a drop of sweat from his temple and grinned.

"By the Lord, I'll have my cake and I'll eat it too. That gentleman will be good to me. I can be sly as well. And he's an old enough head to teach me a few things."

He crossed the ford and unsaddled, throwing the horse into a corral. And when he came inside the door of the main cabin and saw the girl he threw up both arms in pleased surprise.

"Kit Ballard—of all the beautiful happenings!"

She bad a brilliant smile for him as he crossed the room and took both her arms. "Still the same gallant Apollo," said she gaily. And then, seeing how quiet Tom had turned, she disengaged her hands. "How like the old times. If we only had another lady we might put on one of those cotillions."

Lispenard threw his hat across the room. "There is another, by George! Thomas, I command you to ride over and get the prairie beauty."

Christine Ballard's smile tightened, though it was wholly imperceptible to Tom. She threw a swift glance at Lispenard—a glance that he perfectly understood—and murmured:

"Yes? Tell us about her, Tom. You have been keeping something from me."