Читать книгу Saddle and Ride: Western Classics - Boxed Set - Ernest Haycox - Страница 49

Table of Contents

Midmorning of the day after Dad Satterlee's funeral Chaffee went to town. His purpose was to see Doc Fancher and ask a few questions concerning the dead gambler; also to find Mack Moran who had never returned to the ranch. Once in Roaring Horse he went directly to the Red Mill. Mack wasn't there, nor did Chaffee find him at any of the other saloons; however, the red-headed puncher had left a broad trail of ruin behind him. According to several citizens, Mack had gone moody—not an unusual thing for him when he started to think about the injustices of the world—-and had indulged in several free and sanguinary battles. With this much information Chaffee wasted no more time hunting. He went to the jail; there was Mack down in the basement cell, smoking glumly.

Mack's rosy face was a little scarred; but there was relief in his eyes. "Wondered how long I'd cool here before yuh got worried. Lemme out of this stink hole."

"They's twenty dollars assessed agin him," stated the marshal. "If his carcass is worth that much to yuh on the hoof, Jim, he's yores."

"That's cheap," agreed Chaffee. "Let the catamount loose."

"He'd ought to be put under a perpetual bond," said the marshal, jingling his keys. "When he gits sore he's a natcheral borned assassin. Mebbe yuh think he didn't plumb devastate Roarin' Horse fer about three hours. Took six of us to lug him down here. It happens once every four months, regular as a clock." He let Mack out of the cell and accepted twenty dollars from Jim. Out of his mellowed and easy-going comprehension of the range and its ways, he spoke a mild warning. "I don't mind, personal. Boys have got to blow off. But be careful from now on. Things is changin' around here. I ain't goin' to enlarge on the statement. But let it hatch in yore coco. Things is changin'."

"I will shore testify to that," grunted Mack. He shook hands with the marshal. "No hard feelin's, Will. I'll see you get a new shirt for the one I tore." The partners went out and ate a bite. Afterward they rolled along the street, smoking. "It gets me how a place can change," said Mack. "A month ago any Stirrup S man was high card around here. Our credit was good and we never got slung into the calaboose except to sober up. Now look. The talk about us boys is terrible scandalous. That's why I got started. Run into three separate gents that made tough passes about what an outfit we was."

"What was their complaint in particular?" asked Chaffee.

"I never found out," replied Mack, very casually. "They didn't wake up in time to tell me. You figger I'm goin' to stand around and fiddle my fingers while they get wise? It's the same all over town. Funny how quick it's changed. Somebody's behind it. Somebody's put a bug in certain ears. And that Luis Locklear person ain't no help to Stirrup S, either. I saw him chinnin' with Callahan in the Red Mill other night. You'd 'a' thought they was twins. When a sheriff of Roarin' Horse get neighborly with Callahan it shore means somethin' poisonous."

"Where's those tar models?"

"I left 'em bundled up in the stable."

They went into the stable and away down an alley between bales of hay. Mack dug around, retrieved a gunny sack, and handed it to Jim. They went out and crossed the street to Doc Fancher's office, which was over Tilton's drygoods store. "Seen Theodorik Perrine since night before last?" asked Chaffee.

"Nope. He's skinned out." Something struck Mack suddenly. "But here's a funny thing. Last night I was in the jug. That cell's got a window flush with the back side of the buildin', you know. And I heard Luis Locklear talkin' to a gent out there among the busted wagon frames and loose balin' wire. Mebbe it's all my imagination, but it shore sounded like he was meetin' up on the quiet with Perrine. What do you figger?"

"Maybe. Listen, Mack, I'm going to be around here for an hour or better and it's a long ride home. Anyhow, Miz Satterlee wants somebody to lope over to Nickerson's. Seems like Nickerson has got some old tintypes of Dad Satterlee which he is goin' to give her. You better bust thataway. Be dark when you're home."

"All right. Now don't you go get in the calaboose."

They separated. Jim Chaffee climbed the stairs and let himself into a door labeled: "H. T. Fancher, M.D., County Coroner and Bone Specialist." The term "bone specialist" was not the exact technical term for that branch of medicine, but Doc Fancher was a most untechnical man. He knew his public. At present he had his feet on his desk, reading a copy of the Breeder's Gazette; he seemed genuinely pleased to see Chaffee.

"Doc," said Chaffee, "I'm not coming to see you in your capacity of public official. I want to chin with you, friend to friend. All this is private. What do you know about this Clyde fellow?"

"I know he was lyin' dead on the second story landing of the hotel when I found him," said Fancher. "Funny thing about that. He had two guns, a .38 and a .44. He was holdin' to the .38 as tight as a vise with his right hand. The .44 was lyin' loose, near his head. Don't often see a man packin' two different styles of weapons. No shots fired from the .38, but there was one empty cartridge in the .44. I may add, Jim, that Satterlee was killed by a .44 slug."

"What do you think about it, Doc?"

Fancher raised his shoulders. "Officially, nothing at all. As a private individual a whole lot. Let it ride like that, Jim."

Chaffee reached into his sack and took out his tar models, ranging them on the table. There were four all told, and Fancher lowered his boots to look at them with a professional eye. "I poured hot tar into a lot of tracks out beyond the livery stable the night of the shootin'," explained Chaffee. "These models are a little rough on the bottom and edges, but they'll give a pretty good idea of somebody's boots."

"Jim, you work fast," observed Fancher. "Wait a minute." He went back to a closet and drew therefrom a pair of high leather shoes. "I took all of Clyde's personal effects out of his room. Locklear didn't want to bother with that business, but I figured it might come useful. Here's some of the man's shoes. Same size and style as the ones he had on. Now let's look."

Three of the models were obviously too large; but the fourth, laid against the shoe's bottom was an approximate fit. "Looks like it might be it all right," observed Fancher.

"That's interestin'," mused Chaffee, a light sparkling in his eyes. "For those tracks were away off at one corner of the corral. Nowheres near the back door. Now, it wasn't possible for a man to shoot Satterlee unless said man stood inside the place. It was dark; Satterlee was framed in the front opening—an easy target for anybody within thirty feet. The fellow with shoes corresponding to this model never got within two hundred feet of Satterlee. Couldn't hit the old chap with a .44 at that distance. And he wasn't lined up right to even look through from back door to front door. He was clear over in a corner of the corral."

"What print was nearest the rear door?" asked Fancher.

Chaffee indicated the model. Fancher turned it over and studied it carefully. "This is not a cow country boot Jim. Too broad and flat a heel, too wide at the arch, and also a way too blunt at the toe." He looked at the remaining two models. "This third one doesn't mean anything to me. Curious-shaped foot, though. Keeps right on widening from instep to toes. Funny. Now this last one—" and Fancher fell silent for a long while. "Regulation puncher's boots—and as big as a house. Took a heavy man to make a hole in the ground deep enough to match this model." He looked at Chaffee, seeming to hold a thought he was too cautious to express openly. Chaffee nodded. "I'm thinkin' with you on that."

"Interesting to know who wore the shoe with the flat heel and blunt toe. We might discover something of interest."

"I'll find out," Chaffee replied, grim all of a sudden. "Don't worry about that. Keep all this under your hat for the time being. And I wish you'd take charge of those models until I need 'em. They'll get battered if I pack 'em around much."

Fancher agreed. Chaffee started for the door; Fancher stopped him on the threshold with a very casual remark. "If I were you, Jim, I wouldn't spill any of this dope to Luis Locklear."

"Not in a thousand years," said Chaffee, and descended the stairs.

His next point of call was the hotel. "Miss Thatcher here?" he asked the clerk.

That gentleman shook his head. "She went over to the Woolfridge ranch around noon."

Chaffee departed, somehow feeling cast down. All during the ride to town he had debated seeing her; and he had screwed up his courage and rehearsed what he wanted to say to her. Going toward the stable, he tried to erase the dissatisfaction from his mind. "I guess," he murmured, "I had better lay that bright dream aside. I had better forget it. Her road runs a long ways from mine. A sixty-dollar man has mighty poor sense to be thinking about her kind of a woman. My life is out here. She belongs somewhere else. Why be a kid about it and nurse ideas that won't ever work?"

He was so engrossed in his own problems that he almost ran headlong into Mark Eagle, the bank cashier. Mark's round moon face was always grave; now it seemed overcast with an unwonted solemnity. Chaffee stopped and forgot his own affairs. "You look like a heavy load of grief, Mark."

The Indian never circled a subject. He spoke directly always. "My father is very sick up in Oregon. I've got a letter from him. He ought to go to the city and see a good doctor."

"Won't he listen to anybody but the tribe medicine man, Mark?"

"No, he's civilized, Jim, like me. He'd go to a doctor. But that's a hundred mile trip and it takes money." Mark looked across the building tops, dusky eyes roaming the distant peaks. It was always this way with the man. He went quietly about his business, obeying his mind while his heart seemed to pull him away to a wilder country. "My father is not old. And he is a chief. I am not a good son to be here and unable to help him."

Jim Chaffee's hand worked on impulse, reaching down to the pocket that carried his last material wealth. "You're on the wrong track, Mark. You've got friends, lots of them. What's a friend for? Here's eighty dollars. You get that to him. Quick."

The Indian's hands were stiff at his sides, and Chaffee knowing the danger of prolonging a scene like this, tucked the bills into the other's coat. Mark Eagle's copper cheeks contracted, "You need your money, Jim. I'll be a long time paying it back."

"Who said anything about that? Get it mailed off in a hurry."

Mark Eagle straightened. A burst of light came through the dark eyes. He placed an arm on Jim's shoulder and spoke with a sonorous dignity that somehow carried him back to his forebears. "You are my friend. You will never regret that. An Indian never forgets."

"You'll maybe be doin' me a favor some of these days," drawled Chaffee.

"Sooner than you think," said Mark Eagle. And he moved swiftly away, which was also his manner. Chaffee got his horse and swung out of town, his mind dwelling for a moment on Mark Eagle's last phrase. Few people made any pretense at understanding the Indian; nor did Chaffee try to understand him. But he liked Mark, and since he liked the man he was instantly ready to help. There was nothing complex about Jim Chaffee's nature.

Outside of town Chaffee left the main trail and quartered into the desert; this was a habit he had been trained to since boyhood. He had never forgotten the shrewd maxim laid down by his father. "The beaten trails don't teach you nothin', Jim. Ride open country with yore eyes propped apart. Yuh may never be no world beater, but if yuh learn to read the good Lord's signs yuh won't never be a fool." The early afternoon's sun came out of a cloudless sky, the breath of winter blew over the eastern peaks. Chaffee soon forgot his problems; this land had the power to completely absorb him, to mold him to its own mood. Up and down the rolling reaches he traveled, blue eyes questing the horizons or dwelling upon the nunute testimony unfolding along the ground. A jack had scurried off here; a coyote's tracks zigzagged east and west aimlessly. One clear mark of a shod horse struck along the bottom of a minor draw, traveling fast. He spent more than a casual glance at this. Somebody riding from the road due east to Woolfridge's ranch. Rising over a billow of the desert, he found a rider about a quarter mile in front and going at a sedate pace. His own rate of speed soon closed the distance and presently he recognized Gay Thatcher. She turned and saw him; reined in and waited until he came abreast.

"Lost?" he asked her, raising his Stetson.

"No, I'm exploring. I started out for the Woolfridge ranch. But it is so glorious an afternoon that I just gave my pony free head and told him to go wherever he wished. I think I'm headed for Roaring Horse canyon. I want to see it. Can you make it and get to Woolfridge's by sundown?"

"I think so. That's the way I'm heading. If you don't mind company I'll trail along."

"That will be fun." They rode side by side, silent for a spell. The girl made a wholly different picture to Chaffee. The shimmering dress and the lamplit softness of her features these were gone. She wore a buckskin riding skirt, stitched boots, and a loose jersey that seemed to have been long used for just such excursions as these. She was still feminine, still graceful and poised; but the change of clothing at once fitted her into the country. A passer-by would have looked once and decided she had lived hereabout all her life. Jim Chaffee marked the lax sureness of her riding. That was a trick that didn't come out of an Eastern riding school.

She turned her head slightly and looked up at him, her eyes smiling beneath the brim of her hat. "What are you thinking?"

"Asking myself questions."

"So am I. If you will ask them out aloud perhaps we can get better acquainted. I'd like to—and I believe you would. Or am I taking in too much territory, Jim Chaffee?"

"You're not a pilgrim," said he.

"No, I'm not," she answered. "I was born and raised in the West. I went East to school. I came back and both of my folks died. I have been doing many things in many places since then. There. I am answering questions you didn't ask. Now it's my turn. What's ahead of you?"

"Sixty dollars a month and found, I reckon."

"You're not fair to yourself, my dear man. Nobody looking at you in the rodeo yesterday would ever think you were easily whipped. You're not either." That last sentence rang quite strongly. He turned to her a little surprised.

"Now what—"

"That's fair, isn't it?" she broke in, her cheeks pink. "We're asking questions."

A tension inside him snapped and left him smiling at the horizons. All at once he was a slim and lazy and slightly reckless figure. Fine sprays of humor wrinkled his bronzed temples. "Maybe my luck is changin', but I don't think so."

"I have often found that a person makes his own luck," said she, and gravely folded her hands on the horn. "Whose cattle off to the right?"

He studied a scattered band in the distance. "Stirrup S. Well, a man can make his luck up to a certain point, but he can't change the universe to do it. Now look at me and then look—" Right there he stopped. This was going pretty far. But the surprising and insouciant Gay Thatcher blandly finished the thought for him.

"—Then look at me. All right Jim Chaffee, just you look at me. I don't think you have seen me yet. Oh, I know—but I mean you haven't really seen me. How far is it to the rim?"

"Just a little piece now. I can judge men, but not women. I reckon I'll have to pass that bet."

"They told me you were a man of courage," said the girl in a mildly plaintive voice. And as an apparent afterthought she added: "They also told me you knew something about women."

He said nothing to that, and she tucked one sure observation in the back of her head. "He is a gentleman." They worked up along a slight incline. Fence posts spread before them. The canyon's black and foreboding depths yawned abysmally beyond the wire. They got down. Chaffee helped her through the barbed strands and took her arm as they advanced to the precipice and looked below. He didn't want her to think he was assuming an undue freedom, so he explained.

"Some people get dizzy looking down there. It ain't only the distance, but when the light hits that moving water it does funny things to the eyes."

She said nothing for several minutes, but he felt her body alternately lighten and relax and sway slightly as she studied the grim, sheer walls and the remote river heaving itself turbulently onward. The immensity of the picture, the solemn and inspiring force of it seemed to grip her as it always gripped him. Steadied by his arm, she leaned a little forward, her clear face utterly absorbed, her eyes somehow puzzled. It reminded Chaffee at the moment of a child watching the heart of a fire and unconsciously captured by the eternal lure of the mystery of life. The knowledge that she, too, was affected by the elemental rawness of the canyon immeasurably warmed his heart.

She raised her face to him. "When the ground is secure under our feet we are big, important. It takes this to make us humble, Jim Chaffee."

"I don't know of any better medicine to reduce the size of a fellow's pride," said he.

"You haven't any false pride," she told him.

"I've lived too long in the open."

"Why," she asked, "do they call it Roaring Horse canyon?"

He delayed the answer for some moments. "A horse is a tough animal. It never makes much fuss. But there is one time in its life when it makes a sound that will turn a man ice cold all over. And that is when it knowingly goes to death. I have heard animals squeal; I've heard them bellow and groan and scream. But there isn't anything so almighty heartbreaking and pitiful as to hear that half roar and half scream of a horse going down. It's pretty near human. Thats why they named it Roaring Horse. Many a brute has gone over this rim. And nothing lives that goes over."

"I have heard them," she said quietly. "Where are the fords of the river?"

"Lee's Ferry is up five miles nearer the bench. It's a stiff climb down, but that's about the only accessible spot near here, and the only quiet water. Linderman's Ranch, fifteen miles below is the other. The canyon drops toward the desert level there."

"Has anybody ever navigated the gorge?"

"A fellow did it in 1892. Three different parties have tried since. All drowned. One chance in four. It can be done, but a man has to be pretty desperate to try. He's got to hit the rough water just right. The river never lets up from Lee's to Linderman's. I think we'd better start back. Getting late."

They got to their horses and turned silently south. The girl, wondered at the prolonged quietness swung to find him reading the ground; and it surprised her to see the quick change coming over his lean cheeks. His eyes were slightly narrowed and his lips were pressed tightly together. In the grip of such an expression the man's face was neither handsome nor pleasant. It was again the face of a fighter, the same face she had seen at the rodeo. Wondering, she scanned the foreground and saw nothing, save here and there a scuffed trail made either by cattle or horses. Once when the western rim began to blaze with the purple and gold of a setting sun, he slackened the pace and went to one side of his pony. And thereafter, until the outline of the Woolfridge ranch houses grew plain in the distance, he looked straight ahead of him, looked with some kind of a problem. Seeing the houses, he broke away from his preoccupation.

"There's the end of your trip. I'll leave you here."

"It has been a pleasant trip," said she, drawing rein.

Humor flickered a moment in his deep eyes. And that humor covered the profound earnestness of his words. "My luck's gone out. You will be going back to your own country in a few days. I'll not be seeing you again."

"Why not?"

The sun was down and the shadows swirling across the desert. In the dimming light they faced each other, and Jim Chaffee saw in her the vision of the woman he had always carried in his heart. She was fair and sturdy, feminine and desirable; a wisp of brown hair strayed across her cheeks and she lifted a hand to brush it back—a swift and graceful movement that brought with it a faint fragrance of perfume. Her lips were pursed, and her eyes met his glance squarely as if wishing to speak.

"I'll be riding close to my outfit the next week," said he. "Snow's falling up in the peaks. It will be here soon. And—other things are going to happen."

"Is that the only reason, Jim?"

She used his first name. So naturally did it fall into her soft and slightly wistful question that he hardly noticed it. He drew a deep breath. "No. No—it ain't. A man can make his own luck—but he can't change the universe to do it. Ma'am—"

"My name," said she, just above a whisper, "is Gay."

"I have said it many times to myself. Gay. No other name would fit you. And I will be sayin' it many more times—after you're gone. A man's got to play the cards as they fall. He can't stack the deck."

She made a small gesture with her hands. "You don't know me, Jim. You are setting me too high. Oh, see me as I am!" And after another interval she added: "Perhaps I know more about affairs in the country than you think. If I asked you to be—a little careful, would you remember?"

He shook his head. "Now you're setting me too high."

"No, I'm not!" said she, the energy of her answer raising her in the saddle. "You are honest, you are—a gentleman. What more should you be?" She took up the reins and moved away. Ten yards off she turned, and he saw the blurred white oval of her face. "I am asking you to be careful. I know many things I wish I could tell you. Perhaps I'll be here more than a week. Good- night, Jim."

"Good-bye—Gay."

"No—good-night."

She pressed her horse and raced toward the house. A glimmer of light sprang out along the desert. Chaffee watched until she had faded into the falling darkness; and then wheeled and raced northward in the direction of the canyon. The premonition of trouble filled his mind.

"Those tracks struck straight for the middle herd. What else but rustling? I ain't got time to get back home and roust out the boys. I'll have to tackle this alone."

His horse was tired, he himself was weary; yet the farther he rode the more urgent and the more alarming was the warning in his mind. A gray mound stood vaguely toward the bench. The herd was in that vicinity. On he galloped, the horse gallantly stretching out at Chaffee's impatient words. Time passed; he slackened pace and veered along a great circle. Nothing of the herd was visible in the deep darkness. Impelled by the same foreboding, he straightened out for the canyon again. Cattle didn't shift so far of their own accord in the short space of time between midafternoon and night. Reasoning along line of the most probable course of travel rustlers would take with so large a bunch of cows, it seemed to him he ought to swing at right angles and head into the undulating folds of the bench. Yet try as he would, he could not overreach the impulse to keep his present trail.

He pulled up. Away to his left and somewhat ahead he caught the vast and ominous rumbling of a herd in swift motion. Without further thought he raced off at a tangent. The rumbling grew deeper and swelled above the sound of his own progress. All of a sudden he was on the flank of the herd, seeing the dark mass stretch out in an irregular line. He dug his spurs deep into the sides of his exhausted pony and shot forward among the lead steers. As he did so he felt the pressure of another bunch of stock thundering in from his right, converging with the mass he was now abreast. He was trapped in the van of a wide-flung line of onrushing brutes, frenzied by mass fear and mass sound. He thought for a moment to make one effort to break their stride. Drawing his gun he fired point-blank into the weaving formation abreast him. A brute fell, but the bellowing and the fury seemed only to rise higher. And far back he heard what he thought to be a man's voice dimly crying a warning. The warning came to him equally soon; somewhere in the immediate foreground was the canyon. He bent low and slipped his quirt, alternately yelling into the pony's ear and flailing the buckskin thongs. With one last magnificent burst of reserve strength the horse pulled away, yard by yard; and Jim Chaffee, crying, "So long, Buck!" saw a fence post shoot up from the ground and bear abreast of him. He kicked the stirrups, flung his feet far ahead, and let go, the force of the impact rolling him head first. He waited, in that flashing fragment of time, to hear the bursting and shrill singing of barb wire as his horse struck. No such sound came. Still rolling, he caught instead a distant screaming; and then the rush of the cattle engulfed that sound. His hands touched the jagged rocks of the rim; he gripped them with the pressure of death and swung himself down into the black maw. His boots touched a flimsy ledging; he got a new grip on an outcrop just below the rim; and, braced to the shock, he hung there as the dust rolled against his face and the very pit of hell seemed to engulf him.