Читать книгу Riders of the Night - Eugene Cunningham - Страница 5

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The two buckboards stopped seat-to-seat. Burk Yates and Myra Yarborough sat with heads turned sideways, facing each other. Myra’s clear, blonde head was raised as defiantly she met Burk’s somewhat swollen, bloodshot, very sullen dark eyes. He towered on the seat there beside squat little Froggy, his driver. At twenty-two, he had Ol’ Burk’s six feet of height and, if he would never own his father’s enormous shoulders, he had a lean and powerful and athletic grace Ol’ Burk had never known.

He lowered across at the girl. There had been an extended session in his Pullman drawing-room ending only as he dropped off at Cottonwood Siding, a mixed poker-party of more than mere dampness. His mouth was still dry and his head throbbed.

‘Seems I can’t leave a thing to you!’ he burst out. ‘I thought I might expect you to make some effort at management, until term-end. But, no! I have to drop everything——’

‘A bottle! It must have been a bottle you dropped, from the look of you!’ she flared, with equal bitterness. ‘But I gathered from your letters that you expected everything of me. It seems to me that you might have gathered, last year, that conditions in the country aren’t normal. Just to protect your own share of the Y, you might have thought of doing something!’

‘Well, I’m here, now!’ Burk said sullenly. ‘I left everything to come down and see what could be done to rescue the pieces of the property. I was in a fair way to end a beggar, it did seem. I’d been hoping I could graduate before I had to come back, but there’s no use talking about that——What’s to be the arrangement? Am I to protect my share while you protect yours? You take Shorty Willets to handle yours, while I take Turkey Adkins? And is all the stock that’s been stolen a debit against my account—because I wasn’t here to watch over it?’

‘That’s not fair!’ she cried. ‘It’s not so, either!’

There were angry tears in the blue eyes now, and her face was flaming.

‘I—I’ve been working—trying to keep the ranch going—as it used to be—and you say that to me—and Shorty Willets—he——’

Suddenly, she put face down upon her arm, on the back of the buckboard seat. She began to cry gaspingly. Burk’s dark brows drew together frowningly. He leaned a little toward her, his hand coming up. Then he straightened with small shrug, lip curling. He waited grimly for her to lift her head.

It was coming to him that he had been long away from this Crazy Horse country—barring that flying trip of the year before. Even his vacations had been spent in the East—in Philadelphia or New York. They had been—naturally!—more pleasant than if spent down here under Ol’ Burk’s heavy thumb. If Ol’ Burk had guessed how his son and heir had educated himself in the night life of those cities—Burk grinned sourly and returned to contemplation of Myra Yarborough.

He had almost forgotten what Myra must have grown into, he reflected. He recalled her most clearly as a hard-riding young daredevil in overalls and boots and man’s Stetson, with yellow pigtails streaming. And for nearly two years, now, they had been quarreling peevishly by letter. He had asked the reason for the abrupt shrinkage of income from the place. She had written one irritable and irritating letter after another until he had grown sick of opening the envelopes to see the further tale of losses which seemed to be the only tale she had to tell.

‘Shorty—Shorty’s dead!’ she gasped finally, half-lifting her face. ‘Murdered! Lynched! Last night—here!’

Burk gaped at her unbelievingly.

‘Lynched! In Yatesville! I——Why, how could that have happened? What had Shorty Willets done? You mean that—that the people here lynched Shorty Willets?’

She told him chokingly of the finding of the two bodies—and of the grim warning of the One-Gang pinned to their shirts. Burk stared incredulously while in him rose a helpless sort of fury. He had been accustomed to think of this great scope of country here, between the Crazy Horse Range and the Tortugas, as in a way constituting his inheritance—and Myra Yarborough’s, of course. Their fathers had been the pioneers of it all. The very county and town bore his father’s name. Now, he, last of the Yateses, was in grave danger of becoming one of that class of ranchers of whom men said ‘they used to be——’

‘By God!’ he said between his teeth. ‘They—they can’t get away with this! They won’t get away with it!’

Myra looked furtively up at his working face. His savage tone was so much like Ol’ Burk’s. Then a corner of her red mouth climbed unpleasantly.

‘You sound so much like Uncle Burk... You even look somewhat like him...’ she said very sweetly—too sweetly. ‘If I didn’t recall so vividly those letters you wrote from school—complaining, without knowing a thing about conditions, that the Y was mismanaged or this gang couldn’t operate as it did, couldn’t run off Y horses and cattle—I could take your likeness more seriously, Burk. But I’m afraid that whatever of Uncle Burk’s about you is merely a reflection. School’s spoiled you—school or—the vacation amusements that put the puffiness under your eyes! You don’t know anything about this country any more—hardly more than if you were Eastern-born. But—what will you do?’

‘Leaving aside the remarks about my vacation amusements and my personal appearance—neither of which is any affair of yours,’ Burk said with dignity, ‘I’m taking charge of the Y. I will do whatever seems necessary and best.’

‘You mean you think you’ll just run the Y to suit yourself?’ she inquired, ruffling belligerently. ‘Well—you’ll please remember that I own a half-interest in the place. So, whatever is done on it will certainly be done with my approval—or it won’t be done at all! You’ll not come back after neglecting the place for these years and ride roughshod——’

‘Neglect! You’re a fine one to talk of neglect—or of running the Y. You had your chance at that. You’ve been running things to suit yourself, and the direction you picked seems to have been right straight down into the ground!’

‘Nevertheless,’ she said, with chin up, ‘you’ll get my consent to anything affecting the management of the ranch.’

‘I’ll do whatever’s best—in my opinion,’ he snapped, sticking out his chin at her. ‘What’s a woman know about running a cow-outfit? Nothing! Or less!’

‘Then I’ll take legal steps!’ she told him, mouth hard as his own.

‘Say! One of us is going to leave the Y! I can see that! One of us is going to sell out!’

‘I’m not going to sell! The Y is my home. More than it is yours—you’d rather live in the East, anyway. You’ve proved that. But my father put his life’s work into the place the same as Uncle Burk did. I’m going to keep my half. But I’ll buy you out! I’ll give you a mortgage and pay you off annually.’

‘Mortgage! With no income to meet the interest, even. If I sell, it’ll be for cash. If I sell! Is Turkey Adkins in town? I want him to——’

‘Turkey isn’t working for the Y, any more. He hasn’t been, for six months,’ she told him. There was a shade of uneasiness in her tone, now. ‘He—I—he quit.’

‘Quit! Turkey left the Y?’ cried Burk, scowling. ‘Why—Dad always said that Turkey was the best cowman in the State of Texas! Shorty Willets was a good man, of course. But he wasn’t in Turkey’s class. Say! What’d you do—to make him quit?’

‘Do! I started to fire him, but he quit before I could. He was entirely too—independent and too—talkative! That’s the trouble with employees in this country. They have entirely too much to say to their employers and——’

‘Myra,’ Burk said incredulously, ‘Texas-raised, as you were, do you mean to tell me that you brought back Vassar notions of the proper relations to Landed Gentry of the Lower Classes? Did you try to work Texas cowhands—such as your father and my father were in their beginnings—Eastern-style? As if they should tip their hats to the Master and Madam? Did you try to make Turkey wear livery? Oh—Lord!’

‘I—I——’ Myra began furiously. But Turkey Adkins wandered up. He stopped at the wheel of Froggy’s buckboard and squinted critically at Burk, then sadly shook his head.

‘Hi, Burk!’ Turkey offered gravely. ‘Como ’sta?’

‘Bien! Bien! Y Ud.?’ Burk grinned. Slipping into the familiar pela’o Spanish of the country was somehow pleasant—like pulling on a comfortable old pair of boots. Sight of Turkey’s homely, grizzled face, known since childhood, was pleasant, too.

‘Oh, I’m tol’able—tol’able—for a ol’ wore-out, stove-up cow-wrastler. I seen yuh come in, Burk. In-ter-est-in’, it was, too! Yuh was jigglin’ up an’ down on that buckboard seat like them Eastern folks jiggle in their mail-order saddles. So I ’lowed I’d drift down by yuh an’ kind o’ widen myself by lookin’ at yuh!’

Myra’s mouth twitched, and she stole a covert glance at Burk. She seemed to be setting herself for the explosion when Burk suddenly grinned.

‘Reckon,’ he said. ‘But if you went back there, and they gave you a postage-stamp saddle with short leathers that set your knees under your chin, you’d post, too! You’d post or fall off! I’m glad to see you, though. Myra tells me you’re no longer the chief and outstanding pillar of the Y...’

‘Well,’ Turkey said judicially, ‘Myra has got her faults—plenty of ’em. Includin’ some she wouldn’t admit. But usual she tells the truth—as she sees it.’

‘Now, listen to me, Turkey,’ Burk said earnestly, leaning over the seat-arm. ‘Things have got into a hell of a mess on the Y and you know it. This dam’ One-Gang that’s been stealing and murdering so blithely and gay has put us hubbing hell. So far as I’m concerned, there are two things to do—settle down to a war, or sell out! I don’t ’specially want to sell——’

‘Who would yuh be sellin’ to?’ Turkey seemed to meditate aloud. ‘To—Myra? Or to Lance Gregg? An’ what’d yuh git?’

‘To Myra—if she could raise at least half cash. But she can’t! Now, if I stick and run the place, I’ve got to have a good foreman. Shorty’s gone—not that he was ever one-two on a ten-count with Turkey Adkins. Suppose you get your hot roll, now, and bring it out and sling it in the foreman’s bunk?’

Turkey looked far away, to the serrated crest of the Crazy Horse Range; looked down at his shabby boot-toes; looked swiftly up at Myra’s hard-set red mouth.

‘Gather up corn in a new silk hat.

’Tain’t goin’ rain no mo’!

Massa growl if yuh eat much o’ that

’Tain’t goin’ rain no mo’!

‘Hundred an’ fifty a month?’ he demanded abruptly, squinting at Burk.

‘Why—you blame’ pirate! Seventy-five to a hundred is the most any foreman in this country ever got—and you know it! Tell you what, though: come out for a hundred and, the minute we see the country straightened out so we’re making money, a hundred and fifty it’ll be!’

‘Nah, I reckon not,’ Turkey drawled, staring at the mountains. ‘Reckon I don’t want to go to work, no-how. But I always did want a chancet to turn down a hundred an’ fifty a month.’

Burk grew red. But Turkey, with a spacious gesture that might have been taken for farewell, went drifting off. Burk shot an angry side-glance at Myra, whose mouth worked.

‘Monkey, monkey, drink yo’ beer.

’Tain’t goin’ rain no mo’;

How many monkeys yuh reckon’s here?

’Tain’t goin’ rain no mo’!’

‘He’s a—very peculiar person,’ observed Myra. Burk glared at her. But a tall gentleman walking toward them hove into sight in time to replace the peculiar Mr. Adkins in Burk’s mind.

‘Isn’t that Lance Gregg, the Wallop-8 fellow?’ Burk inquired. Myra, with quick side-glance, nodded affirmation. She showed more than normal color, Burk thought. He looked again at the oncoming figure, then back once more at Myra. She, meeting the somewhat speculative narrowing of his dark eyes, grew rosier still and angry-looking—as if she resented her betrayal of emotion.

Lance Gregg—even Burk would admit—was a figure to draw attention anywhere. He was big and perfectly proportioned, and he had a reckless, swaggering air about him.

He came lounging up to the side of Myra’s buckboard, a strong hand at the well-kept brown mustache he wore. His white shirt was of silk and a blue silken neckerchief was knotted artfully about tanned throat smooth and thick as a column. His trousers were of a silvery whipcord stuff, thrust into half-boots of glossy alligator-hide that were heeled by McChesney ‘girl leg’ [‘gal-leg’] spurs glinting with gold and silver plate.

Burk looked him up and down, from fifty-dollar white Stetson to small feet. He observed that the open-topped holster sagging from Gregg’s hand-stamped cartridge-belt was empty. It was proof that Lance Gregg was a law-abiding citizen; for one did not openly wear a short gun within Yatesville’s limits.

‘H’lo, Myra,’ Gregg smiled at the girl. She returned the greeting, if with a shade of constraint. Somewhat hurriedly, she indicated the sullenly quiet Burk.

‘You met Mr. Yates last year—when he was home from school.’

‘Probably did,’ Gregg nodded carelessly, without looking at Burk. ‘How’s everything, young fellow?’

Burk took his time about answering. He was somehow very certain that Lance Gregg was never going to be a favorite of his.

‘Not so good, Griggs,’ he drawled, purposely distorting the name. ‘But—perhaps they’re due for an improvement. Soon, even.’

‘That so?’ Lance Gregg lifted his brows, troubling now to look directly at Burk. ‘How’s this improvement going to be worked—if that isn’t part of a deep, dark secret?’

‘Probably by a little of this and a little of that... Being in the right place at the right time; doing the right thing—old Y-style. Which reminds me: Wallop-8 lost much stuff to this marvelous One-Gang? Or has the Y been its only customer?’

‘Nothing to speak of. They seem to have made up their minds to—round our corners. We’re not fond of gentlemen with long ropes and sticky loops, on the Wallop-8. If they worried us—well! we’d have to worry them.’

He turned back to Myra.

‘Having luncheon with me? I think we’re due a little talk. Sorry about that bunch of cows being lifted right out of headquarters pasture. Perhaps you can tell me something that’ll let me suggest something. We’ve got to find that hole in the fence. This business has got to stop. I’ll think of something!’

Myra flashed a glance at the tight, narrow-eyed face of Burk. She seemed embarrassed. Burk looked thoughtfully at her before staring very calculatingly indeed at Lance Gregg. His smile was anything but pleasant as he waved his withdrawal from the scene.

‘Go ahead!’ he told Myra. ‘I’ll have some things to attend to. I’ll be busy for quite a while. But I’ll hunt you up, some time this afternoon. I’ll take a lift in—your buckboard out to the ranch. If you don’t mind, of course! Anyway, I’ll see you later.’

Then, quite ignoring Lance Gregg, he grunted to the stolid and patient Froggy, who was sitting like a statue beside him; had hardly moved during the long stop.

‘Take my traps up to the hotel—the Municipal—will you, Froggy? Just throw ’em on the porch where I can pick ’em up.’

He paid off the driver with a bill from what was getting to be a lean roll, touched hat rim to Myra and jumped down.