Читать книгу A Rider of the High Mesa - Ernest Haycox - Страница 3

Table of Contents

COMING across the flat valley floor, Lin Ballou, riding a paint horse and leading a pack animal, struck the Snake River Road at a point where Hank Colqueen's homestead made a last forlorn stand against the vast stretch of sand and sage that swept eastward mile after mile until checked by the distant high mesa. It was scorching hot. The saddle leather stung his fingers when he ventured to touch it, and the dry thin air seemed to have come straight out of a blast furnace. Colqueen's dreary little tarpaper shack stood alone in all this desolation, with a barbed wire fence running both ways from it along the road—a fence that separated just so much dry and worthless land from a whole sea of dry and worthless land. And by the ditch side, Hank Colqueen himself was working away at a stubborn strand; a slow- moving giant of a man whose face and arms were blistered and baked to the color of a broiled steak.

Lin Ballou stopped beside the homesteader and threw one leg around the pommel, taking time to build himself a cigarette while passing the news of the day. He had to prime his throat with a little tobacco smoke before the words would issue from its parched orifice.

"Hank," he said, croaking, "when I see a man laboring in such misery I get mighty curious as to his hope of reward. Being a plumb honest man, just tell me what you figure that effort is going to bring you."

Colqueen straightened, dropped his wire-puller, and grinned. Speech came slowly to him, as did everything else. And first he must remove his hat and scratch a head as bald as an egg to stimulate thought. His blue eyes swept Lin, the road, the sky, and the distant mesa.

"Well," he replied at last, "I don't know as I can tell you what I'm working for. But a man's got to keep at it, ain't he? Can't see as I'm getting anywhere, but it keeps a man cooler to move than to lop around the house."

Lin Ballou laughed outright. "Always said you were honest. That's admitting more than these misguided settlers would."

Colqueen grew serious. "Well now, I don't know. When water comes to this land, it'll be Eden, and don't you forget it. This soil will grow anything from sugar beets to door knobs. Just needs a mite of water. When that comes—"

Lin groaned. "Oh, my God, you're like all the rest of them! Where's the water coming from? It won't rain in these parts six months on end. The Snake's too low to dam—and still you fellows keep hoping."

"It'll come some day," Colqueen said. "Government will find a way. Then we'll all be rich. Lin, you shouldn't be so doggoned pessimistic about it. You got a fine piece of ground yourself if you'd only farm it instead of traipsing off to the mesa all the time."

Ballou exhaled cigarette smoke and settled himself in the saddle. "My opinion of homesteading, if stated in a few words, would be something scandalous to hear. No, sir! What's the news?"

"Nothing much," Colqueen said, eyeing Lin's pack animal more closely. "Still prospecting?"

"Yeah."

Colqueen studied the younger man at some length and finally turned toward his work. Quite as if by afterthought he threw one piece of information over his shoulder. "Been more cattle rustled this last week while you was gone. Cattlemen's Committee is about ready to do something."

"Yeah?" Lin drawled. "Cattle certainly are fickle creatures. Well, so long." He spoke to his tired horse and traveled on, the dust rising behind him.

Colqueen shot a last look at the pack animal and issued a statement to himself. "Says he's prospecting out in the high mesa—but I swear I never seen him packing pick or shovel. Kind of funny, too, when a man stops to think of it, that some of this rustling goes on while he's doing this prospecting. Guess it ain't none of my business. I sure like Lin—but he's getting a bad name for himself with all this mysterious loping around the country."

Lin Ballou kept on his way. Colqueen's shanty dwindled in the distance and finally was lost behind a solitary clump of poplars. The morning's sun grew hotter, and the mesa became but a shadow in the heat fog that shimmered over the earth. Relaxing, Lin noted occasional patches of land enclosed by fence, that had been given up long ago, and homestead shacks that were vacant and about to fall apart. It took unusual persistence to stick in this country. Once it had belonged exclusively to cattlemen—free range that had no fence or habitation from one day's ride to another. Then the craze for farms had stricken the country and a wave of settlers had penetrated the valley. The sturdy and the stubborn had stayed on while the weak departed.

It was no place, Lin reflected, for a fellow who didn't have a lot of sand in his craw and a boundless store of hope in his heart. As for himself, he failed to see where the homesteader could ever prosper. The land was meant for cattle—and possibly for one other industry. He rode on, thinking about that.

The sun flamed midway in the sky when he came to his own house—which in his early enthusiasm he had built somewhat larger and better than most others in the valley—and put up his horses. He cooked himself a dinner, looked around to see what had happened during his week's absence, saddled again and set out southward toward town—especially toward Gracie Henry's home. Traversing the three-mile stretch, he kept thinking about Hank Colqueen's last statement. More cattle missing, he mused. Guess I knew that before Hank did. And from all appearances there'll be others missing shortly. He smiled somewhat grimly. Hank sure aimed that statement at me. He sure did.

The Henry house, a neat affair in white and green, showed through a group of trees, and Lin, with a quick rise of spirits, trotted into the yard and slid from the saddle, grinning widely.

"Alley-alley-ahoo! Come and see what the great snowstorm left on your porch."

A girl pushed through a screen door and waved her hand gaily.

"Welcome, dusty traveler. You've been gone longer than you said you would be."

She was a lithe, straight girl with burnished red hair and clear, regular features. In some manner the heat and the sand and the hardships had left no mark on her. She seemed as exuberant and happy as if this valley were a blossoming paradise. And she also seemed glad to find Liu Ballou before her. Lin removed his hat and rubbed the whiskers on his face ruefully.

"Shucks," he said, "I guess nobody'd care much if I never got back."

"Fishing, Mister Man," she retorted. "I never answer that statement, and you ought to know it by now."

"Uh-huh, I do, but a fellow can keep trying, can't he? You might make a mistake some day. And where is the Honorable Judge Robert Lewis Henry?"

"Dad's in the house." Suddenly eagerness spread over her face. "Tell me, quick, Lin, did you have any luck this time? Did you find color?"

"There's color all over the earth, ma'am. In the sky, in the grass—"

She stamped her foot. "Don't fool me. I mean your prospecting. Did you find a sign of gold?"

The humor died from him and his lean sunburned face became impassive. "Well, I think we've got a chance—"

"We? Who is 'we'?"

He caught himself. "Just a way of saying myself," he corrected.

She moved fonvard and caught his eye with such soberness and speculation that after a moment he looked away. Not that he was shifty-eyed. There was just something so troubled in her face, something so wistfully troubled that it troubled him.

"Lin, you always fence with me. I never know the truth. Why don't you tell me things? Especially now when everybody—" She stopped short, seeing that her tongue was about to betray her.

Lin Ballou spoke sharply. "Everybody saying what? What's folks been telling you? Meddling like they always do, I suppose. Nosing into other folks business. Gracie girl, what have they said to you?"

"No," she replied, "I'll not repeat gossip. You'd think I believed it, and I don't. Only—"

The screen door groaned. A short, stubby man with a choleric face and white hair came to the porch and adjusted his glasses. This operation completed, he bent upon Lin a glum, severe gaze, pursing his lips first one way and then another. He had an air of self-importance, and though no more than a dirt farmer, he always wore a stiff shirt and high collar. Once upon a time he had been justice of the peace in some eastern state. On coming west he had clung to the title, and since he knew a smattering of law, the homesteaders often brought trivial legal matters to him for his advice.

"Howdy, Judge," Lin said, throwing up a friendly hand. "Hope you got wood enough to keep you warm in this winter weather."

"Hem," said the judge, as if reluctant to answer Lin. "Back from your futile occupation, I see." Sarcasm came readily in his words. "Find any fool's gold?"

"Well, to pair that question, I might ask you if you found any fool's water yet," Lin replied amiably.

Judge Henry threw back his head as if the answer had been an affront to his dignity. Presently he went on, in a still more sarcastic strain. "You may speak lightly if you choose, but water is more apt to come to us as a result of our labor than gold is to you—if indeed you go into the mesa for that particular purpose."

The intent of the last phrase was too plain to overlook. Gracie put an arm on her father's shoulder as if to curb his hostility. Lin regarded him soberly.

"What might you believe I do in the mesa, Judge? Have you got some idea on the matter?"

But the judge, having launched the hint, would not develop it. "Meanwhile your land lies idle. What do you intend to do with it, young man?"

Lin had recovered his temper again. "Do as everybody else does, sir. Pray for water that will never come."

Judge Henry shook his finger at Lin. "As to that, young man, you are mistaken. We will get water." He turned on his heel and retreated into the house. The screen slammed behind him. Lin smiled at Gracie.

"Judge Robert Lewis Henry entertains no high opinion of me, that's mighty plain. Well, the way of true love—"

"Lin!" Gracie said, and grew somewhat red. "But don't be angry at Dad. He has his own troubles."

"Yeah. I guess we all do, Gracie girl. Let me see, this is dance night, ain't it? Are you going with me, or have I lost out?"

"Going with you, Lin. Come to supper?"

He retreated to his pony. "You bet I will. Now, I've got to journey into the metropolis of Powder and stock up. Bye-bye."

Three hundred yards down the road he turned in his saddle to see her by the corral, watching him with shaded eyes. He flung up a hand and went on.

That father of yours is sure a snorter, he thought. It does seem like there's a lot of unkind words being propagated against me lately.

He would have been more certain of that if he had been able to overhear Judge Henry's remarks to Gracie when she stepped back into the house. The judge stood framed in the office doorway, a pudgy, disapproving statue of righteousness.

"Daughter, did I understand you to say you would go to the dance with that Ballou vagrant?"

"Vagrant? Dad, what queer, unkind words you use."

"Hem! He's no less than that and probably a great deal more. Do you know what's being said about him, daughter? It's said that he's no less than a cattle thief, and I'll not—"

"Dad, he is no such thing!" Gracie cried. "Don't you spread gossip like that. It's not right. Who told you he was a thief?"

"Oh, different parties," Judge Henry answered vaguely.

"And how do those different parties know?" she persisted. "How I hate a man or woman who'll sneak around spreading gossip. Lin Ballou is as honest as daylight!"

The judge's favorite weapon was sarcasm and he fell back upon it. "So he's such a fine, upright, industrious man, eh? Seems to me you take a great deal of interest in protecting him."

"I do," Gracie admitted.

"Hem," the judge muttered. "I don't want him around this place. I'm an honest man and I've got a reputation to keep."

But Gracie had a mind and temper of her own. She had cooked and washed and labored and kept books many years for her father and she was not afraid of him.

"Don't you mind your reputation." she said, turning into the kitchen. "He's coming to supper, and I'm going to make him the best apple pie he's ever tasted. He looked thin."

Lin Ballou, in jest, had styled Powder a metropolis, and indeed some of the merchants of the town assiduously worked to make it such. But when Lin Ballou drove into the main street from the road, he had to admit that Powder seemed doomed to crumble into the element it was named after and float away. Once it had been a sinful, turbulent little cattle town. In a later day the homesteaders had appropriated it. Now, with the land boom a thing of mournful history, it rested somnolently and nearly bankrupt under the baking sun, its single row of buildings half tenantless, the paint peeling off. With an eventful history behind it, Powder looked forward—or at least the merchants did—to the time when water should come to the valley and give it another era of prosperity.

Lin hitched his pony on the shady side of the street and walked into the post office for his mail. There was, he found, quite a stack of letters and printed matter, the latter bearing the stamp of the U.S. Geological Service. Primus Tabor, the postmaster, passed them through the wicket with a question propounded in an innnocent tone.

"Ain't seen you for a spell, Lin. Been back on the high mesa?"

"Uh-huh."

"Well, is prospecting any better than homesteading?"

There was an edge to the question, but when Lin looked up from his mail, he saw nothing but a cadaverous and foolish countenance that seemed incapable of much malice.

"About fifty-fifty," he said, and departed.

"Huh," muttered the postmaster, slamming the wicket door.

No anger like that of a born gossip foiled, Lin meditated, holding one particular envelope to the light. And to judge from all the finger marks on these here epistles, somebody's been trying to read through them. Guess I'll have to get my mail through another channel. Won't do at all to have the news inside become common property. No, sir.

He was on the point of crossing the street when he became aware of a burly figure in sombrero and riding boots stamping down the walk toward him. No second glance was needed to recognize the man; Lin saw him with a sudden quickening of pulse. Instead of crossing, he walked straight forward. Abreast of the big man, he nodded and spoke casually.

"Howdy, Mr. Offut."

The man slowed in his course, cast one glance beneath his broad hat brim, and then without as much as a nod, swung on. Lin turned sharply, traversed the street and, with a face bereft of emotion, went into the store. It took him but a few minutes to get a gunny sack filled with provisions. Emerging, he got to his horse and soon was beyond the town, striking toward his own place by a short-cut.

Ballou had no sooner left town than Postmaster Tabor left his office and crossed over to the store. Tabor found no one in the dim interior except the owner of the place, and after a glance behind him, Tabor broke into a mysterious mumble-jumble.

"See it! See what I saw? Guess that makes it certain, don't it?"

"Huh? Grab hold of your tongue," the storekeeper advised.

"Why, damnation," the postmaster growled, "didn't you see Offut snub Lin Ballou? Passed him by with nary a word."

"Yeah, I saw it."

"Well, then, what do you think?"

"Same as you."

"Lin Ballou," the postmaster stated with gusto, "is guiltier than a licked dog. If he wasn't, why should old man Offut—he's the body and soul of the Cattlemen's Committee remember—Why should Offut treat him so cold, 'specially when he and Ballou was once the best of friends?"

"Two and two make four," the storekeeper stated. "Now he says he's prospecting all by himself. Yet he comes and buys grub enough for two-three people. What's that mean?"

"Means him and somebody else is rustling cows," the postmaster said. "And I reckon Offut and the cattlemen know it. Oh, there'll be a necktie party plenty soon enough."

"Doggone," the storekeeper broke in, aggrieved. "When that happens, I'll lose a darn good account."

"I reckon lots of people hereabouts have got Lin Ballou judged right," the postmaster said. "As for all them papers from the Geology Department—that's just a bluff."

"Listen," warned the storekeeper, "don't you go talking too much. Mebbe he's rustling and mebbe folks are getting onto it, but even so, he's got a powerful lot of friends and he's a hard, hard fellow himself. So be careful."

The sun, going westward, threw its long shadows across the valley and struck the high mesa with a glow of flame. Presently, as Lin traveled, something like a breath of air fanned his cheeks, and the distant mesa turned to purple. The heat of the day vanished and then the outline of the distant crags and turrets stood out as if but a short mile or two away.

How deceptive that high mesa was, Lin mused, sweeping its bulk with an affectionate eye. The sight of it was deceptive, and over beyond, among its folds and pockets, there were other deceptions. For along its base and beyond its farther side lay the last of the cattle ranges. And a man might wander for days from point to point, never catching a clear sign of man or beast, yet all the while be within a quarter mile of some hidden bowl harboring both.

Folks might be surprised if they knew what was going on right now in those ridges, he thought, and sunk his head, grateful for the freshening breeze. Half a mile away his house stood to view, the windmill beside it catching the first puffs of wind.

Offut now—he certainly did make a fine spectacle, Ballou told himself. I guess most of the citizens of Powder saw that little scene. Lin Ballou, spumed, scorned, rebuked in plain daylight. Marked, branded, scorched and otherwise labeled as being a cattle thief. He spoke aloud bitterly, wrinkles crowding around his eyes. There was an impotent anger in the way he struck his doubled fist against the saddle leather. "Sure. The story will be all over the country in five hours. Well, I guess I can play the game through now. Man's got to make a living somehow in this cussed country. Gracie, you poor kid. You'll sure have a heart burning when you hear it."

He halted in front of his house and slid from the saddle. Throwing the sack of provisions down, he was on the point of leading' the horse around to the barn when an outline in the sand caught his eye. It was the long narrow print of a cowhand's boot with the sharp heel gouging well into the earth; not a single print, but several, each leading forward and ending at the door. Lin's eye caught a small slit of light between the casing and the door itself. He had closed that door on leaving the house, and now it stood slightly ajar.

In a single move he drew his gun and kicked the portal wide, weaving aside a little to protect himself.

"Come out of there!"

A chair scraped and a voice said gruffly, "Put your thunder wagon down. Hell, can't a man take a rest without being called on it?" And directly after the voice, a strange, uncommonly ugly creature stepped up to the threshold. He was a larger man than Lin Ballou, though his frame carried more fat than Ballou's. He was older, too, with a jaw that shot out beyond the rest of his face and was covered with a metal-blue stubble. He wore black, slouchy clothes and from below his hat came a cowlick that plastered itself closely to his forehead. A toothpick hung from one side of his mouth and gold teeth glittered when he spoke. A gun rested against each hip, and his eyes were themselves almost as piercing as weapons, being a kind of steely black.

"Well, well," Lin said with assumed pleasure, "if it ain't our friend Beauty Chatto. Lost your way, Beauty? Last I knew, your shanty was west about two miles."

"I come on a particular, personal visit," Beauty said. "And I been waiting for quite a spell. Took you a powerful time to negotiate the road between here and Powder and back."

"Watchin' me pretty close, Beauty?"

The steely eyes emitted a flash and the jaw closed vigorously. "Tell a man, Lin. You don't know how close I been a-watching you—me and Nig both."

"Guess it must be a professional interest," Lin murmured.

"Well," Beauty growled, abandoning the toothpick, "I'm getting tired of the watching, so I come to warn you. Make out as if you're prospecting if you want, but that ain't fooling the Chatto family. Nary a bit. A prospector don't go sashaying from hell to breakfast like you do. 'Tween day before yesterday and yesterday night you was all the way from Rooster's Pinnacle to the Punch Bowl. Prospector? Hell, no!"

"Proceed," Lin urged. "What follows?"

Chatto straightened. "This, hombre. You ain't nothing more nor less than a spy, and we ain't gonna have you cluttering the high mesa. Cut it out. Stay away. Vamoose—or get took real sick."

"Moving papers, in short," Lin summed up, watching the man through half-closed eyes. "Your business won't stand inspection, will it, Beauty?"

"Why," Chatto said frankly, "I ain't afraid to admit Nig and me is rustlers—to you, at least. Reckon lots of folks suspect it, but that ain't proof. Point is—you stay away or you'll stumble on us one of these times and get killed."

"Which is bad. But you got me completely wrong, Beauty. I'm a prospector and I'll stick to it. Going into the high mesa tomorrow."

Chatto stretched his ami and stabbed Ballou with a finger. "Take warning, now! I ain't going to look for trouble. You know me. I know you. Just stay away. There's plenty of places to prospect aside from the high mesa."

"Going in tomorrow night," Lin announced. "Much obliged for the warning."

Chatto turned the corner of the house, dived into the barn and reappeared with his horse. From the saddle he made his last announcement. "You think that over, Lin. I ain't sore—yet. Don't like to kill a man before I give him time for studying. Think it over."

He flung his quirt at the horse's lump and rode off at a lope. Ballou put up his pony and returned to the house. Before going inside, he scanned the heavens.

Rain? he thought. Shucks, no. No water in sight. Yet I bet every blessed man inside of fifty miles is praying for it. Some of these homesteaders would kill for an inch of water. He shook his head, far from feeling the humor that he had used all day among the people of the valley.

In that gloaming hour everything seemed discouraging. Even more, there was a portent of ruin in the air. All over this parched floor men were keeping up a flame of hope that must inevitably flicker out; and as for himself, he knew that by morning his own name would be further blackened by suspicion. What was to come of all this? And what would Gracie think?